The new coronavirus may never go away and populations around the world will have to learn to live with it, the World Health Organisation warned on Wednesday, according to AFP.

As some countries around the world begin gradually easing lockdown restrictions imposed in a bid to stop the novel coronavirus from spreading, the WHO said it may never be wiped out entirely.

The virus first emerged in Wuhan in China late last year and has since infected more than 4.2 million people and killed nearly 300,000 worldwide.

“We have a new virus entering the human population for the first time and therefore it is very hard to predict when we will prevail over it,” said Michael Ryan, the WHO's emergencies director.

“This virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities and this virus may never go away,” he told a virtual press conference in Geneva.