That global figure was reached after an increase of 5,040 cases on Tuesday, while infections by the novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, causing Covid-19 disease, have already exceeded three million.
This barrier was crossed at a time when many countries are taking steps to ease confinement and closure measures that have paralyzed the world for the last eight weeks.
According to the WHO, the trend of deaths and cases worldwide continues to slow down. The first infected were reported in Wuhan, China, at the end of December 2019.
WHO’s Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that «the world should have listened carefully to him because the global emergency began on January 30, with 82 cases and no deaths outside of China.»
He assured that the countries that followed WHO’s advice are in a better position than others, since they complied with the recommendation to apply a comprehensive approach to public health.
At that time, WHO suggested looking for cases, testing, isolating and detecting contacts, measures that have shown their importance over time, Tedros emphasized.
The top WHO representative said on Monday that the current Covid-19 pandemic is far from being over and that the accurate number of cases may be underestimated in some countries due to lack of capacity to perform tests.
WHO delivered supplies to over 40 countries in Africa, while globally it has shipped millions of items and personal protective equipment to 105 countries, in addition to laboratory supplies to over 127 nations.
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