World Health Organization says coronavirus is a China emergency, but not a global health emergency for now

The World Health Organization said it will not declare the coronavirus outbreak in China to be a global health emergency on Thursday, after an emergency committee was divided about the scope of the illness. "Make no mistake. This is an emergency in China, but it has not yet become a global emergency," Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the agency, said in a statement published on Twitter. There are now 584 cases of the illness, a respiratory disease that has been compared to SARS and MERS, including 17 deaths, said the statement. Of those cases, 575 were reported in China, with other cases found in Japan, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Thailand, the U.S. and Vietnam. "We are aware of media reports of suspected cases in other countries, but those cases are still being investigated," he said. Most of the deaths were of patients with underlying health issues such as hypertension, diabetes or cardiovascular disease that weakened their immune systems, he said. The disease is being transmitted from human to human but appears limited to people in close contact like family groups. "There is still a lot we don't know. We don't know the source of this virus, we don't understand how easily it spreads & we don't fully understand its clinical features or severity," said the statement.

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