Peak of coronavirus epidemic has passed, says China

Beijing, Mar 12: China has passed the peak of the coronavirus epidemic, Reuters reported quoting the National Health Commission on Thursday.

This comes a day after the World Health Organization (WHO) characterised the new coronavirus outbreak as a pandemic.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was alarmed by the spread and severity of the outbreak, along with a lack of action taken to combat it.

"We are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity and by the alarming levels of inaction. We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterised as a pandemic," he told reporters.

"We have never before seen a pandemic sparked by a coronavirus," he said.

Meanwhile, Zhong Nanshan, the Chinese government's senior medical adviser has said that the global coronavirus pandemic is likely to be over by June.

A lot of imported cases into China are asymptomatic patients and the re-infection rates among recovered patients is low, Zhong, an 83-year-old epidemiologist renowned for helping combat the SARS outbreak in 2003, told a news conference.

According to the WHO, globally there currently more than 1,24,000 cases of coronavirus across 118 countries. More than 4,600 people have lost their lives due the virus.