Coro­n­avirus: WHO de­clares pan­dem­ic, EMA meet­ings go vir­tu­al

The World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) on Wednes­day de­clared the on­go­ing coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) out­break to be a glob­al pan­dem­ic, mark­ing the first time since the 2009 H1N1 in­fluen­za out­break the agency has used the des­ig­na­tion.

“Pan­dem­ic is not a word to use light­ly or care­less­ly. It is a word that, if mis­used, can cause un­rea­son­able fear, or un­jus­ti­fied ac­cep­tance that the fight is over, lead­ing to un­nec­es­sary suf­fer­ing and death,” said WHO Di­rec­tor-Gen­er­al Tedros Ad­hanom Ghe­breye­sus.

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