Coronavirus: WHO urges countries to make containing Covid-19 'highest priority'

All countries should make containing the outbreak of the Covid-19 coronavirus their top priority, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday (local time), pointing to Iran's "national action plan" to combat one of the world's worst outbreaks after a slow start.

The UN agency stressed that slowing down the epidemic allowed hospitals to prepare and saves lives, while warning that there was no evidence that spread would wane during the approaching summer months in the northern hemisphere.

"We are now on the verge of reaching 100,000 confirmed cases," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a daily news briefing.

"[The epidemic] is geographically expanding and deeply concerning."

"We are continuing to recommend that all countries make containment their highest priority," he added.

"In a globalised world, the only option is to stand together."

Read more: Covid-19 timeline: Virus' spread across the globe

"As I keep saying, we’re all in this together, and we all have a role to play.

Facts not fear.

Reason not rumours.

Solidarity not stigma"-@DrTedros #COVID19 #coronavirus

— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) March 6, 2020

The tally of cases has already surpassed 100,000 - as the WHO's figures have generally slightly lagged behind tallies compiled by news organisations including Reuters.

As of Friday, more than 100,300 people had been infected globally, according to a Reuters tally based on statements from health ministries and government officials.

Iran's death toll from coronavirus infections jumped on Friday to 124, as 17 died and more than 1,000 new cases were diagnosed over 24 hours, the health ministry said.

WHO emergencies programme executive director Dr Mike Ryan said when asked about Iran's mushrooming outbreak that it resembled China and South Korea which quickly uncovered more cases as they began to do active disease surveillance.

"But I also think the Iranian system is switching on. We are seeing a much more all-of-government approach ... with a national action plan now, with 100,000 workers committed to this plan," Ryan said.

"It is much better that we understand the extent of the problem. So we commend the move towards more aggressive, targeted surveillance and we hope that will lead to the kind of control measures that will help push this virus back."

Ryan, when asked whether the virus may not spread as easily in Europe's warm summer months, said: "We do not know yet what the activity or the behaviour of this virus will be in different climatic conditions. We have to assume that the virus will continue to have the capacity to spread.

"It is a false hope to say yes it will just disappear in summertime, like influenza virus. There is no evidence right now to suggest that that will happen."

Coronavirus in perspective

While few would deny the outbreak's official status as an international health emergency, in the ranking of top causes of death it pales into insignificance compared to heart disease, cancer, road accidents, suicide or homicide.

A few figures:

The top killers are cardiovascular diseases (CVD), everything from hypertension to strokes. They were to blame for 17.8 million deaths in 2017, roughly a third of the 56m total deaths recorded that year.

Cancers also loom large, accounting in total for 9.6m deaths. Respiratory diseases and infections together claimed 6.5m lives.

Dementia, digestive disease and diabetes all take heavy tolls. And despite recent progress, HIV/AIDS claimed some 942,000 lives in 2017 and malaria 620,000.

Seasonal influenza epidemics kill between 290,000 and 650,000 people a year, the WHO says.

Viewed by risk factor, high blood pressure was linked to 10.4m deaths in 2017; smoking to 7.1m; high blood sugar to 6.53m; air pollution to 4.9m; and obesity to 4.7m.

Everyday life presents other risks. Road injuries proved fatal for 1.24m people in 2017 - 3400 a day.

Suicide is another big cause. Close to 800,000 people die due to suicide every year, or one person every 40 seconds, the WHO estimates. It cites evidence that for each adult who died by suicide, more than 20 others may have attempted it.

There is also violence. About 464,000 people across the world were killed in homicides in 2017, surpassing by far the 89,000 killed in armed conflicts in the same period, according to the Global Study on Homicide 2019 published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Sources: UNODC, WHO, the Global Health Data Exchange of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME)

- Reuters