Switzerland

GENEVA, March 20. /TASS/: Chinese Wuhan’s experience of pushing back the novel coronavirus gives hope that the pandemic can be stopped, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a briefing on Friday.

"Yesterday, Wuhan, China, reported no new cases for the first time since the COVID19 outbreak started. Wuhan provides hope for the rest of the world, that even the most severe situation can be turned around," he said.

20 March 2020; AFP: The pharmaceutical industry expects it will take 12 to 18 months to roll out a coronavirus vaccine, executives said Thursday, as they jointly pledged to make it available worldwide based on need.

Bureaucracy could be slashed to speed up the process -- but the time needed for safety testing could not be compromised, industry chiefs and the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations told a virtual press conference hosted in Geneva.

ZURICH, March 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Switzerland’s health care system could collapse by the end of the month if the new coronavirus keeps spreading at current rates, a government official warned.

Swiss authorities estimated that 2,650 people had tested positive for the coronavirus and said 19 people had died, while predicting cases will likely soar in the weeks ahead.

GENEVA, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Europe has now become the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, with more reported cases and deaths than the rest of the world combined, apart from China, the chief of World Health Organization (WHO) said here Friday.

More cases are now being reported every day than were reported in China at the height of its epidemic, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted at a daily briefing.

GENEVA (AP) — The World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic and urged aggressive action from all countries to fight it, as U.S. stocks plunged into bear market territory and several American cities joined global counterparts in banning large gatherings.

By using the charged word “pandemic” after shying away from calling it so earlier, the U.N. health agency sought to shock lethargic countries into pulling out all the stops.

GENEVA, March 10 (Xinhua) -- A senior Chinese diplomat has said here that to continue dialogue on the Korean Peninsula situation is in the interest of all the parties concerned and a general expectation of the international community.

Liu Hua, special representative for human rights affairs of China's Foreign Ministry, made the remarks at the ongoing 43rd session of the UN Human Rights Council on Monday.

GENEVA, March 10 (Xinhua) -- 203 more deaths from COVID-19 have been reported worldwide in the past 24 hours as of Tuesday morning, lifting the global death toll to 4,012, according to a daily report released by the World Health Organization (WHO) Tuesday evening.

A total of 113,702 confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported globally as of 10:00 CET Tuesday, an increase of 4,125 infections from the previous day, among which 4,105 new infections are outside China.

GENEVA, Mar 7 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Additional five countries — the Philippines, New Zealand, Ireland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia — have seen local transmission of COVID-19, according to the daily situation report on COVID-19 released by the World Health Organisation (WHO), Friday evening.

Compared to the previous day, the transmission classification of those five countries have been revised from “imported cases only” to “local transmission,” making the total number of countries and regions where local transmission emerged to 41.

GENEVA, March 6 (NNN-AGENCIES) — World health officials have warned that countries are not taking the coronavirus crisis seriously enough, as outbreaks surged across Europe and in the United States where medical workers sounded warnings over a “disturbing” lack of hospital preparedness.

Global markets tumbled again over concerns about the impact on the economy and as countries took more drastic steps to prevent contagion of a disease that has killed over 3,300 people and infected nearly 100,000 in some 85 nations.

GENEVA, March 2 (Xinhua) -- The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday that the spread of COVID-19 in South Korea, Italy, Iran and Japan has become the greatest concern.

South Korea has so far reported more than 4,200 cases and 22 deaths, meaning it has more than half of all cases outside China, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a daily briefing.