The World Health Organization or WHO revealed that the deadly coronavirus disease or COVID-19 has infected 52 countries.
Iceland, New Zealand, Nigeria in Africa and European countries Belarus, Lithuania and the Netherlands recently reported COVID-19 cases.
The WHO said that the rate of spreading the disease and its global impact could be classified as ‘very high’.
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“The continued increase in the number of cases, and the number of affected countries over the last few days, are clearly of concern,” WHO Director-General doctor Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a press briefing on Friday.
“What we see at the moment are linked epidemics of COVID-19 in several countries, but most cases can still be traced to known contacts or clusters of cases. We do not see evidence as yet that the virus is spreading freely in communities,” he added.
Ghebreyesus said that the coronavirus situation can still be contained if patients will be detected early and contacts can be traced.
COVID-19 has now infected at least 83,652 globally, with a majority of the cases reported from China.
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The 51 countries outside of China, meanwhile, collectively reported 1,027 new cases.
WHO added that as of Thursday, more than 36,117 patients in China have recovered from the virus.
