China has isolated about 20 million people at the epicenter of Thursday's deadly virus outbreak, but the World Health Organization said the disease is not yet a global health emergency.
Since it hit the seafood market and in Wuhan city, it has claimed 18 lives, infected hundreds of others, and has been found even in the United States.
The new virus has raised alarm because of its similarity to SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), which killed about 650 people in mainland China and Hong Kong between 2002-2003.
But after two days of negotiations to determine the level of global concern, the World Health Organization (WHO) did not declare a public health emergency of international concern – the declaration used for the most serious epidemics.
“This is an emergency in China, but it has not yet become a global health emergency,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyes told reporters in Geneva.
The WHO postponed its decision after the Chinese authorities announced unprecedented measures to contain the spread of the virus.
China has effectively quarantined nearly 20 million people in Wuhan and other cities and has announced measures to control the disease nationwide as hundreds of millions of people began traveling across the country this week for the Lunar New Year holiday.
Beijing has canceled the mass celebrations that usually draw crowds during the New Year holidays.
Streets and shopping malls in Wuhan were eerily quiet after authorities told residents not to leave the main city of 11 million, where most cases were identified.
Train and plane flights from Wuhan were suspended indefinitely, and toll roads on roads outside the city were closed, leading to fear and panic among those trapped in the city.
“We feel like the end of the world has come,” a Wuhan resident wrote on China's Weibo platform, and expressed concern over food and disinfectant shortages.
Authorities in the neighboring city of Huanggang also announced that public transport and train services would be suspended at midnight, and people were ordered not to leave the 7.5 million city.
Ezhou, a city in Hubei province with a population of 1.1 million, announced that the train station had been closed earlier that day, and three other cities in the province announced traffic restrictions.
WHO has thanked China for taking “measures it deems appropriate to contain the spread of coronavirus in Wuhan and other cities.”
However, he stressed, “we hope they will be effective and short-term.”
The chairman of the WHO Emergency Committee, Didier Hussen, meanwhile, told reporters that after receiving “accurate information” from the Chinese authorities, health experts determined that travel restrictions “were not directly related to the specific evolution of epidemiology in the city.”
More than 580 people have been infected with the virus across China – most cases were identified in Wuhan, where a seafood market was identified as the epicenter of the outbreak, where wild animals were illegally traded.
Meanwhile, China on Thursday confirmed the first death from the virus outside the epicenter, bringing the total to 18.
The health commission in the northern province of Hebei, which borders Beijing, said an 80-year-old man diagnosed with the coronavirus had died.
The other 17 fatalities were between the ages of 48 and 89 who already had health problems, Chinese health officials said Thursday.
The first case of the new virus was confirmed on December 31, and has since been detected in Japan, Hong Kong, Macau, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United States. Singapore and Vietnam confirmed the first cases on Thursday.
Animals are believed to be the main sources of the outbreak. Research published this week suggests the virus may have originated in bats or snakes.
The WHO has confirmed that the new virus can be transmitted between humans, at least those in close contact with wild animals. Chinese health officials warned that the virus could mutate and spread further.
But the WHO stressed on Thursday that there is still “no evidence of human-to-human transmission outside of China.”
If WHO were to declare a global emergency, it would prompt countries to step up their collaboration in the fight against the virus, including, perhaps, on trade and travel restrictions – something the organization does not yet recommend.
Countries have already stepped up efforts to stop the spread of the pathogen – technically known as 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) – by heat screening all passengers arriving from China at airports in several countries.
Several companies have also begun developing a vaccine against the virus, hoping the first clinical trials can be done within months.
The WHO Emergency Committee stressed the need for international vigilance and information sharing and recommended a new meeting 'in a matter of days to further explore the situation'.
Agence France-Presse.
