The World Health Organisation (WHO) has listed six actions countries around the world must take to stop the spread of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic which has quickly spread across the globe and has claimed many lives.
Director-General of the WHO, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, at a press briefing in New York on Thursday lauded the lockdown that has been effected in many countries but declared that the lockdown alone could not stop the spread of the virus.
He stated that the period should be used to do more to suppress the spread of the disease.
“We understand that countries are trying to assess when and how they will be able to ease these measures”, Ghebreyesus said.
“Asking people to stay at home and shutting down population movement is buying time and reducing the pressure on health systems, but on their own, these measures will not extinguish the epidemics.”
Dr. Ghebreyesus at the press briefing also advised countries to immediately expand, train, and deploy health care and public health workforce and also revealed six actions countries must take to prevent the spread of the virus.
He said countries must implement a system to find every suspected case at the community level; ramp up production capacity and availability of testing; identify, adapt, and equip facilities you will use to treat patients; Develop a clear plan and process to quarantine contacts and refocus the whole of government on suppressing and controlling COVID-19.
Meanwhile, health authorities in Spain registered 655 fatalities from the coronavirus – down from more than 700 on Wednesday, while Italy confirmed a lower rate of infections.
As at the last count, the number of declared coronavirus cases in Europe topped 250,000, more than half of which are in hard-hit Italy and Spain.
