Fresh deaths and a surge in new COVID-19 cases in Iran, Japan and South Korea yesterday fueled fears of a pandemic, as the disease took root in some of the world’s poorest, and worst-equipped, countries.
The rapid spread abroad came as the WHO announced that the epidemic had peaked at its epicenter in China, where it has killed more than 2,600 people and infected more than 77,000 others.
However, the situation has worsened elsewhere with nearly 2,700 other cases and more than 40 deaths globally, prompting restrictions on travelers from infected nations and national efforts to isolate suspected patients.
Photo: Reuters
South Korea, Italy and Iran have each logged sharp increases in infections and deaths, while several Middle Eastern countries also reported their first confirmed COVID-19 cases.
Yet WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the virus could still be contained.
“For the moment we are not witnessing the uncontained global spread of this virus and we are not witnessing large-scale deaths,” Tedros told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland, on Monday.
However, he added that countries should do everything they can to “prepare for a potential pandemic.”
Iran has emerged as a major hotspot with the death toll yesterday rising to 15 as three more people succumbed to the disease.
The country has been scrambling to contain the epidemic since last week when it announced its first two deaths in Qom, a center for Islamic studies and pilgrims that attracts academics from abroad.
Iran has confirmed 61 cases so far, making its mortality rate exponentially higher than anywhere else in the world and raising suspicion that many more people have contracted the disease there.
A WHO team was due to arrive in Iran yesterday.
Several neighbors have enacted measures to block arrivals from Iran, but the virus has already spread to Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East.
In China, 508 new cases were reported, with all but nine at the outbreak’s epicenter in central Hubei Province.
The death toll nationwide reached 2,663 after 71 more people died, the lowest rise in almost three weeks.
Reassured by the official numbers, the country is gingerly returning to business.
Beijing is seeing more vehicles on the street, factories are resuming work, Apple Inc is reopening several stores and some regions are relaxing traffic restrictions.
However, schools remain closed, the capital has a mandatory 14-day quarantine for returning residents, and authorities are keeping about 56 million people in Hubei under lockdown.
China’s National People’s Congress late on Monday also said that it would immediately ban the trade and consumption of wild animals, Xinhua news agency reported.
Scientists suspect, but have not proven, that the new coronavirus passed to humans from animals.
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