GENEVA: The World Health Organi­sation said on Monday that more than 70 percent of those infected with the new coronavirus in China have recovered, adding that the country was “bringing its epidemic under control”.

Out of the more than 80,000 cases of COVID-19 in China, “more than 70 percent have recovered and have been discharged,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva.

The coronavirus is closer to causing a pandemic but outbreaks in countries can still be controled through a combination of containment and mitigation measures, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.

“Now that the virus has a foothold in so many countries, the threat of a pandemic has become very real,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, told the news conference.

“But it would be the first pandemic that could be controlled. The bottom line is we are not at the mercy of the virus.” Four countries account for 93pc of the nearly 110,000 cases worldwide, Tedros said.

“We are encouraged that Italy is taking aggressive measures to contain its epidemic and we hope that those measures prove effective in the coming days,” he added.

Published in Dawn, March 10th, 2020