The World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a global health emergency on Thursday. Here's what the 'extraordinary event' means.
Hours after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the first human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus on U.S. soil, officials from the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a global health emergency — activating a worldwide effort to stop the virus’s spread.
Although the organization initially showed restraint on declaring the emergency, WHO experts said the decision —in light of the now more than 8,200 cases worldwide — was nearly unanimous. In a press conference following the news, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, said the decision is meant to unify the world around stopping the disease’s spread.
Only five other outbreaks have been declared global health emergenciesOfficially known as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern , the formal declaration has been made in just five other outbreaks: swine flu , polio , ebola , zika and kivu ebola . The WHO defines it as “an extraordinary event” which is determined to both “constitute a public health risk to other [UN] states” and “potentially require a coordinated international response.
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