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.
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"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.
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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.