COVID-19 cases will soon reach 1m globally according to the World Health Organisation

The Director-General of WHO, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, said this when he gave his COVID-19 update on Wednesday (April 1, 2020).

“Over the past five weeks, we have witnessed a near exponential growth in the number of new COVID-19 cases, reaching almost every country, territory, and area. The number of deaths has more than doubled in the past week.”

“In the next few days, we will reach one million confirmed COVID-19 cases and 50,000 deaths,” he added.

He stated that even though Africa, Central, and South America have recorded relatively lower numbers of Coronavirus the WHO acknowledges that COVID-19 would have social, economic and political effects for these regions.

“It is critical that we ensure these countries are well equipped to detect, test, isolate and treat COVID-19 cases, and identify contacts. I am encouraged to see that this is occurring in many countries, in spite of limited resources.”

“Many countries are asking people to stay at home and shutting down population movement, which can help to limit transmission of the Coronavirus. But it can have unintended consequences for the poorest and most vulnerable people,” he added.

Ghebreyesus indicated that he had encouraged governments to put in place social welfare measures to cater for the vulnerable people during this time.