WHO warns that the threat of the Coronavirus becoming a pandemic is now “very real”

The threat of coronavirus becoming a pandemic is now “very real”, the World Health Organisation has warned.

The threat of a global pandemic is rising as the new coronavirus rapidly spreads across the world from Asia, to Europe, the Middle East and now parts of the United States, World Health Organization officials said Monday.

CNBC reports that while the virus is slowing in China where it originated in December, it’s picking up pace across other parts of the world, spreading to more than 100 countries with more than 111,000 confirmed cases. Korea has the most cases outside of China with roughly 7,500 infections, followed closely behind by Italy and Iran, which all had more than 7,000 COVID-19 cases as of Monday morning, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Via WHO / Sky / CNBC

In one day last week, the number of new cases outside of China, where the virus originated, was nearly 9 times higher than the number of new cases in China.

This virus has found a foothold on every continent except for Antarctica. In several countries, the number of cases continues to climb.