WHO announces new crown epidemic constitutes global pandemic
On March 11, local time, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially announced that it could use "Pandemic" to describe the epidemic situation of the new coronavirus. This means that the World Health Organization officially recognizes that the new coronavirus has entered global pandemic.
This is after the World Health Organization announced on January 31, Beijing time that the new coronary pneumonia epidemic in China constitutes a public health emergency (PHEIC) of international concern, and escalated the epidemic trend of new coronaviruses.
Since March 9, local time, CNN has reported in the report that the term Coronavirus Pandemic is used to describe the epidemic situation of the new coronavirus.
What is a global pandemic?
According to the WHO definition, a pandemic is the worldwide spread of a new disease.
The latest officially declared global pandemic was the 2009 H1N1 flu, which spread to more than 70 countries. According to the United States CDC, from April 2009 to April 2010, H1N1 infected more than 60 million people in the United States alone, resulting in 12,469 deaths.
The most impressive pandemic in history was the Spanish flu of the last century. The global outbreak of H1N1 influenza A from January 1918 to December 1920 caused a total of 500 million people in one country or one third of the world ’s population to be infected with the virus, and at least 50 million people died worldwide.
At present, there is no clear definition of the "pandemic" of the disease. In a March 9 report, CNN stated that the pandemic recognized by the global medical community includes the following three criteria:
1. The virus is pathogenic and lethal in the population, that is, the disease caused by the virus is more harmful;
2. The virus can be transmitted from person to person;
3. There is evidence that the disease is endemic worldwide.
The WHO stated at a press conference on March 11 that "in the past two weeks, the number of COVID-19 cases outside China has increased 13 times, and the number of countries affected by the epidemic has doubled. At present, the world More than 118,000 confirmed cases have occurred in 114 countries, and a total of 4,291 people have died unfortunately. In the coming weeks, we believe that the number of confirmed cases, deaths, and the number of countries affected by the epidemic will continue to rise ... Therefore, We evaluated COVID-19 as a pandemic. "
Controversies over the new crown pandemic
In fact, discussions about whether the new crown pneumonia epidemic constituted a global pandemic began weeks before the World Health Organization announced the pandemic.
On February 24, the WHO stated at a conference in Geneva that the epidemic of new cronavirus pneumonia "has not yet” constituted a pandemic. "The current use of the term pandemic is not only contrary to the facts, but it can also cause panic" emphasized Tan Sedruk, WHO Director-General.
A WHO spokesman, Tarik Jasarevic, said: "There is no official classification of pandemics. The 6-stage evaluation system used during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic is no longer used. The new coronavirus outbreak composition was announced on January 30 PHEIC is already the highest level of alert that WHO can issue. "
Although there is no official definition of a pandemic, spokesperson Margaret Harris said that "if the epidemic of the new coronavirus meets the criteria of a previous pandemic, WHO may use the term pandemic in communication."
The next day, Nature wrote that it was only a matter of time before the term pandemic was used. The article quotes Marc Lipsitch, an American expert in infectious disease epidemiology: "No matter what WHO says, I think the epidemic has met the epidemiological conditions that make up a global pandemic. Regardless of how a pandemic is defined, the available evidence suggests that A pandemic has happened. "
On February 28, Bill Gates wrote in NEJM that the new crown pneumonia epidemic could become a pandemic that never happened in a century, and called on governments to take action as soon as possible to prepare for the response.
His conclusion is mainly based on the following two points.
First, the fatality rate of the new coronavirus in 2019 is about 1%. This data is between the 1957 pandemic (0.6% fatality rate) and the 1918 pandemic (2% fatality rate), indicating that it is several times more severe than a typical seasonal flu.
Secondly, the spread of new cronavirus pneumonia is very strong. On average, an infected person can infect two to three people, grow exponentially, and spread through mild to asymptomatic patients. Coronavirus pneumonia has caused ten times more than cases confirmed of SARS in just a quarter of the time.
On 2 March, WHO Director-General Tan Seth Zhuo said at a media briefing: "If evidence proves that this is the case, WHO will not hesitate to declare the pandemic. But we need to look at it objectively. The problem ... this is not an unstoppable epidemic, we can fight it. "
On March 9th, CNN's chief medical reporter stated in the article “Why CNN is calling the novel coronavirus outbreak a pandemic”, "Although neither WHO nor CDC uses the pandemic to refer to the new coronavirus, experts in the field of epidemiology and public health agreed that the new coronavirus has constituted a global pandemic. "
As of now, New Crown virus has more than 100,000 confirmed cases and more than 3,000 deaths worldwide. In the past week, the number of newly confirmed cases outside China was almost nine times the number of new cases in China. With the exception of Antarctica, New Cronavirus has footprints on every continent worldwide.
On March 9, local time, WHO Director-General Tan Desai said at the routine press conference of New Crown Pneumonia: The threat of New Crown Pneumonia becoming a pandemic (disease) has become very realistic, but this will be the first in history A pandemic (disease) that can be controlled will not be left at the mercy of the virus.
To this day, WHO has announced that the new crown epidemic constitutes a global pandemic.