WHO emergency panel to monitor new coronavirus
Play
Geneva - The World Health Organization (WHO) said Friday it would set up an emergency expert committee to prepare in case a deadly SARS-like coronavirus that has been slowly spreading in parts of the Middle East turns into an epidemic.
So far, new infections of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome – Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) have been occurring at a steady low rate of around 20 a month, WHO assistant director general Keiji Fukuda said in Geneva.
"We are not seeing it sweeping through communities," he said about the disease that has caused 42 deaths among the 79 confirmed cases since September.
French scientists concluded that "MERS-CoV does not yet have pandemic potential," in a study that was made public Friday by the British journal The Lancet.
The scientists found that three MERS patients are likely to only pass on the virus to two additional people.
The international experts chosen for the WHO committee are to hold their first meeting on Tuesday.//DPA
