The World Health Organization declared a global emergency over the 2019nCoV respiratory infection.

Medical staff transfer a patient infected with the nCoV virus at a hospital in Wuhan city, Hubei province, China on January 30, 2020. Photo: THX/TTXVN

At a closed-door meeting of the World Health Organization (WHO) Emergency Committee in Geneva (Switzerland) in the early morning of January 31 (Vietnam time), Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus decided to declare a global emergency (PHEIC) due to the respiratory infection caused by the new strain of coronavirus (2019nCoV).

This is a type of pneumonia virus that originated in China and has killed 170 people in that country and infected more than 7,000 people in 19 countries around the world.

BBC quoted WHO as saying that the number of people infected outside China is 98 cases spread across 18 countries, with no deaths. There are 8 cases of human-to-human transmission, in Germany, Japan, Vietnam and the US.

The decision comes as the outbreak continues to spread rapidly in China. "The main reason for this decision is not only due to what is happening in China but also due to the situation in other countries," Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement at a press conference in Geneva.

A global emergency is an internationally legally binding instrument relating to disease prevention, surveillance, control and response.

The first PHEIC was declared in April 2009 during the swine flu (H1N1) outbreak, the second in May 2014 during polio, the third during the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa, and the fourth during the Zika virus outbreak in the Americas.

The WHO has twice refused to declare a global health emergency related to the new coronavirus. However, given the complex developments and rapid spread of this disease, many experts around the world have called on the WHO to review the current situation and issue a global pandemic warning.