WHO admits error in assessing coronavirus risk

Duvar English

The World Health Organization (WHO) has admitted that it made a mistake in its assessment of the coronavirus, which claimed the lives of over 100 people in China.

The Geneva-based UN agency said in a situation report late Jan. 27 that the risk was "very high in China, high at the regional level and high at the global level."

In a footnote, the WHO explained that it had stated "incorrectly" in its previous reports on Jan. 23, 24 and 25 that the global risk was "moderate."

The correction of the global risk assessment does not mean that an international health emergency has been declared.

The WHO on Jan. 23 stopped short of declaring the novel coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern - a rare designation used only for the worst outbreaks that would trigger more concerted global action.

The virus, which was first identified in the city of Wuhan in China on Dec. 31, 2019 has since infected more than 2,700 people worldwide, including a few cases identified in over a dozen other countries.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is visiting China this week to discuss ways of containing the outbreak, came under intense questioning from reporters on Jan. 23 over his decision not to declare the emergency.

Some reporters asked whether the decision was politicized.

At the briefing at WHO headquarters, however, Tedros had said that the designation could be changed at any moment and that the global risk from the outbreak was "high."

"This is an emergency in China but it has not yet become a global health emergency. It may yet become one," he said.

"WHO's risk assessment is that the outbreak is a very high risk in China, and a high risk regionally and globally."

WHO said the categorization was "a global evaluation of risk, covering severity, spread and capacity to cope."

The agency added that the mistake made in three of its situation reports had been an "error in the wording."

Ghebreyesus, in a meeting with State Councillor Wang Yi in Beijing, said he approved of the government's measures to curb the outbreak, the foreign ministry said.

"Tedros said the WHO does not advocate for countries to evacuate their citizens from China, adding there was no need to overreact," the foreign ministry said in a statement. "He said the WHO is confident in China's ability to prevent and control the epidemic."

The WHO chief, who also met President Xi Jinping, was not available for comment. A WHO panel of 16 independent experts twice last week declined to declare an international emergency over the outbreak.

The WHO said only one of the overseas cases involved human-to-human transmission.

"That’s still one case too many. But we’re encouraged that so far we have not seen more human-to-human transmission outside China," the WHO said on Twitter.

"We’re monitoring the outbreak constantly."