WHO warns of equipment shortage to fight coronavirus
05 March, 2020
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday warned of a worldwide shortage and price gouging for protective equipment to fight the fast-spreading coronavirus and asked companies and governments to increase production by 40% as the death toll from the respiratory illness mounted.
The virus continued to spread in South Korea, Japan, Europe, Iran and america, and several countries reported their first confirmed cases, taking the full total for some 80 nations hit with the flu-like illness that may lead to pneumonia.
U.S. lawmakers were considering spending just as much as $9 billion to contain local spread of the virus.
In Iran, doctors and nurses lack supplies and 77 persons have died, among the highest numbers outside China. The United Arab Emirates announced it was closing all schools for four weeks.
The death toll in Italy, Europe’s hardest-hit country, jumped to 79 on Tuesday and Italian officials are thinking about expanding the region under quarantine. France reported its fourth coronavirus death, while Indonesia, Ukraine, Argentina and Chile reported their first coronavirus cases.
Health officials have said the death count is 2% to 4% depending on the country and may be much lower if there are thousands of unreported mild cases of the condition.
Because the coronavirus outbreak, prices of surgical masks have increased sixfold, N95 respirators have tripled in expense and protective gowns cost doubly much, the WHO said.
It estimates healthcare personnel each month will require 89 million masks, 76 million gloves and 1.6 million pairs of goggles.
The coronavirus, which emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year, has spread all over the world, with an increase of new cases now appearing outside China than inside.
There are almost 91,000 cases globally which a lot more than 80,000 are in China. China’s death toll was 2,946, with more than 166 fatalities elsewhere.
In the usa, nowadays there are over 100 persons in at least a dozen states with the coronavirus and nine deaths, all in the Seattle area.
Amid criticism of Americans not having the ability to get tested for coronavirus unless they met certain limited criteria, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said on Tuesday that anyone is now able to get tested with a doctor’s order under new guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
New York state reported its second case, a man in his 50s who works in Manhattan and has been hospitalized.
The general public transportation agency in NY, the most densely populated major U.S. city greater than 8 million, said on Twitter it was deploying “enhanced sanitizing procedures” for stations, train cars, buses and certain vehicles.
China has seen coronavirus cases fall sharply, with 129 within the last 24 hours the cheapest reported since Jan. 20.
With the world’s second most significant economy struggling to get back on track, China is increasingly worried about the virus being cut back in to the country by citizens returning from new hotspots elsewhere.
Travelers entering Beijing from South Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy would have to be quarantined for 14 days, a city official said. Shanghai has introduced a similar order.
The worst outbreak outside China is in South Korea, where President Moon Jae-in declared war on the virus, ordering additional hospital beds and more masks as cases rose by 600 to nearly 5,000, with 34 deaths.
WHO officials also expressed concerns about the problem in Iran, saying doctors lacked respirators and ventilators needed for patients with extreme cases.
WHO emergency program head Michael Ryan said the need in Iran was “more acute” than for other countries.
While the case numbers in Iran seem to be bad, he said, “things have a tendency to look worse before getting better.”
Source: the-japan-news.com