SHANGHAI/SEOUL: Asia reported hundreds of new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, including an American soldier stationed in South Korea, as the United States warned of a pandemic, the disease spread in Europe and Brazil confirmed Latin America’s first infection.
World stocks tumbled for the fifth day on fears of prolonged disruption to global supply chains, while safe-haven gold rose back towards seven-year highs.
Stock markets globally have wiped out $3.3 trillion of value in the past four trading sessions, as measured by the MSCI all-country index.
The disease is believed to have originated in a market selling wildlife in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year and has infected about 80,000 people and killed more than 2,700, the vast majority in China.
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention urged Americans to prepare, saying that while the immediate risk there was low the global situation suggested a pandemic was likely.
“It’s not a question of if. It’s a question of when and how many people will be infected,” the CDC’s principal deputy director, Anne Schuchat, said on Tuesday.
World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, however, advised against referring to a pandemic, defined by the agency as the “worldwide spread” of a new disease.
“We should not be too eager to declare a pandemic without a careful and clear-minded analysis of the facts,” Tedros said in remarks to Geneva-based diplomats.
“Using the word pandemic carelessly has no tangible benefit, but it does have significant risk in terms of amplifying unnecessary and unjustified fear and stigma, and paralysing systems. It may also signal that we can no longer contain the virus, which is not true.”
The United States has reported 57 cases of the virus. President Donald Trump, back in Washington after a visit to India, said on Twitter that he would meet US officials for a briefing on the coronavirus on Wednesday.
Dr Bruce Aylward, head of a joint WHO-Chinese mission on the outbreak, told reporters on his return to Geneva that world preparations should not wait. “Think the virus is going to show up tomorrow. If you don’t think that way, you’re not going to be ready,” he said. “This a rapidly escalating epidemic in different places that we have got to tackle super-fast to prevent a pandemic.”
The WHO says the outbreak peaked in China around February 2, after authorities isolated Hubei province and imposed other containment measures.
The US military said a 23-year-old soldier based in Camp Carroll, about 20 km from Daegu, had been infected and was in self-quarantine at home.
Brazil reported the first case in Latin America, a source said on Wednesday — a 61-year-old who had visited Italy.
Devi Sridhar, a professor and chair of global public health at Edinburgh Medical School, said the spread showed that the outbreak, known as COVID-19, must be taken seriously.
— Reuters
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