A slight drop overnight in the number of people infected by the new coronavirus is welcome but “nothing to celebrate”, a top UN health official said on Thursday.
Dr Michael Ryan, head of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Programme, was speaking in Geneva after confirmation that there are now 28,060 confirmed cases of infection in China and 564 deaths - with 225 cases in 24 other countries, where one death has been recorded, in the Philippines.
“Although we are pleased that the numbers from today are the first day in which the overall numbers of confirmed cases reported from China have dropped, and so we are thankful, and I’m sure our colleagues on the frontline in China are thankful too”, he said.
“But it is very difficult to make any prediction relating to that. We are still in the middle of an intense outbreak and we need to be very careful on making any predictions.”