• Ahmed Al-Mandhari, Dalia Samhouri, Abdinasir Abubakar, and Richard Brennan.
• Regional Director, World Health Organization Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, Cairo, Egypt.
• East. Mediterr. Health J. 2020 Feb 24; 26 (2): 136-137.

AbstractOn 31 December 2019, a cluster of acute respiratory illness was reported from China and later confirmed as novel coronavirus on 7 January 2020. This virus is the same member of the coronavirus family that caused the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV) reported in China 2003, and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV) reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012. The initial cases have been linked to a live seafood market in Wuhan, China, and the specific animal source is yet to be determined. The detection of this new virus in humans without knowing the source of the infection has raised greatly heightened concerns not only in China, but also internationally. To date, the outbreak has spread to most provinces in China and 25 other countries within a relatively short period. Consequent to its spread, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on 30 January 2020.Copyright © World Health Organization (WHO) 2020. Open Access. Some rights reserved. This work is available under the CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/igo).

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