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WHO staff tests positive for Coronavirus

Published

5 years ago

March 3, 2020

The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Monday, said one of its staff in Iran Country Office has tested positive for Coronavirus (COVID-19).

WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, who made this known on Monday at a media briefing, said the organisation’s affected staff has mild disease.

Ghebreyesus said that the epidemics in the Republic of Korea, Italy, Iran and Japan was its greatest concern.

He said the WHO’s team arrived in Iran on Monday to deliver supplies and support the government in the COVID-19 response.

Ghebreyesus noted that the number of COVID-19 cases in China continue to decline, saying China on March 1 reported 206 cases to WHO, its lowest since Jan. 22.

“Only eight cases were reported outside Hubei province.

“Outside China, a total of 8,739 cases have been reported from 61 countries with 127 deaths.

“In the last 24 hours, there were almost nine times more COVID-19 cases reported outside China than inside China,” he said.

He added that the Republic of Korea has reported over 4,200 COVID-19 cases and 22 deaths.

This means it has more than half of all cases outside China.
He, however, said that the cases in Korea appeared to be coming mostly from suspected cases from the five known clusters, rather than the community.

“That’s important, because it indicates that surveillance measures are working and Republic of Korea’s epidemic can still be contained.

“Republic of Korea’s situation also underlines that this is a unique virus with unique features. This virus is not influenza.

“We are in unchartered territory. We have never before seen a respiratory pathogen that is capable of community transmission, but which can also be contained with the right measures,” NAN quoted him as saying.