The international community has launched a $675 million preparedness and response plan covering the months of February through to April 2020 in order to fight further spread of the new coronavirus outbreak in China and globally, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
“My biggest worry is that there are countries today who do not have the systems in place to detect people who have contracted with the virus, even if it were to emerge,” said WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, bdnews24.com reported.
“Urgent support is needed to bolster weak health systems to detect, diagnose and care for people with the virus, to prevent further human to human transmission and protect health workers.”
The plan focuses on: rapidly establishing international coordination and operational support, scaling up country readiness and response operations, accelerating priority research and innovation.
World scientists and disease experts had earlier said that the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak could soon be declared a pandemic.