Healthwire Bureau
New Delhi, January 21-With the aim to determine if the ongoing coronavirus outbreak in China should be considered a global public health emergency, World Health Organization (WHO) will convene an emergency meeting on Wednesday.
The emergency meeting will be held by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus under the International Health Regulations. The meeting will be discussing if the SARS-like outbreak constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.
In order to contain the spread of the virus, which has infected over 200 people now, the meeting is expected to come with a list of recommendations.
Earlier, health authorities in China had confirmed 136 new cases of the virus on Monday after reporting more than 130 new cases over the weekend. The virus is believed to have been spreading from person-to-person has claimed the life of three patients so far. An animal market in Wuhan has been linked with the virus.
There have been several other reports of cases elsewhere in China, including Beijing. According to a Chinese daily, Beijing and Guangdong province got three additional cases of coronavirus. Outside China, two cases have so far been reported in Thailand and another in Japan.
According to a report in Al Jazeera, WHO believes that “the most likely primary source,” of the virus could be a seafood Market in Wuhan and there are reports of “some limited human-to-human transmission occurring between close contacts.”
“Currently, it can be said it is affirmative that there is the phenomenon of human-to-human transmission,” Zhong Nanshan, a renowned scientist at China’s National Health Commission, who helped expose the scale of the SARS outbreak, said in an interview with CCTV.
