Threat of coronavirus pandemic now 'very real', says WHO

The World Health Organisation warned on Monday there was now a "very real" threat that the global outbreak of the new deadly coronavirus will become a pandemic, but stressed the virus could still be controlled, news agency AFP reported.

"The threat of a pandemic has become very real," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters while stressing that "it would be the first pandemic in history that can be controlled... we are not at the mercy of the virus".