The head of the World Health Organisation voiced deep concern about the rapid escalation in cases of the new coronavirus, which has reached 205 countries and territories.
“In the past five weeks there has been a near-exponential growth in the number of new cases and the number of deaths has more than doubled in the past week,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
“In the next few days we will reach 1 million confirmed cases and 50,000 deaths worldwide,” he said.
The WHO, World Bank and the International Monetary Fund backed debt relief to help developing countries cope with the pandemic’s consequences, he said.
