The coronavirus epidemic is “far from over” in the Asia-Pacific region, and current measures to curb the spread of the virus are merely buying time for countries to prepare for large-scale community transmissions, Reuters reported a World Health Organisation (WHO) official as saying.

"Even with all the measures, the risk of transmission in the region will not go away as long as the pandemic continues," said WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific Takeshi Kasai.

Kasai warned that for countries that are seeing a tapering off of cases, they should not let down their guard, or the virus may come surging back.