"In the last 24 hours, we had the most cases in a single day since the outbreak started (3925 new cases globally)," he said.
Noting the concern generated by the virus, Tedros added that "we must not forget how difficult it is for the people of Wuhan", in reference to the city at the epicentre of the outbreak in central China.
Outside China, 191 cases have been reported in 24 countries and there has been one death in the Philippines, the WHO Director-General told journalists.
Of that number, 31 cases are people with no travel history to China, he explained, but all of them are close to contacts of confirmed cases, or to someone from the hotspot city of Wuhan, where the epidemic originated.
‘Window of opportunity’ to stop transmissionThis “relatively small number” of infections outside China – which is home to 99 per cent of cases, with 80 per cent of these in Hubei province alone – has presented a “window of opportunity” to prevent the outbreak from developing into a global crisis, the WHO Director-General insisted.
Highlighting that the UN health agency’s major concern is that the virus could reach countries without the capacity to detect infections, Mr. Tedros urged the international community to show solidarity – political, technical and financial – to ensure that it does not spread further.