Medical personnel in protective suits prepare traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for patients of the novel coronavirus with an intelligent dispensing equipment at a pharmacy of Wuhan Tongji Hospital in Wuhan, the epicentre of the novel coronavirus outbreak, in Hubei province, China March 2, 2020.

The number of new coronavirus cases outside China was almost 9 times higher than that inside the country over the last 24 hours, World Health Organization officials said Monday.

As epidemics spread across other continents, new cases in China are falling, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press briefing at the agency's headquarters in Geneva. It reported just 206 new cases of the coronavirus, COVID-19, on Sunday, the lowest number of new cases in that country since Jan. 22, he said.

Outside China, the total number of cases now tops 8,739 across 61 countries, including 127 deaths, Tedros said. About 81% of cases outside China are from four countries, he added.

"The epidemics in the Republic of Korea, Italy, Iran and Japan are our greatest concern," Tedros said, adding that world health officials arrived in Iran on Monday to deliver supplies and support. "This is a unique virus, with unique features. This virus is not influenza. We are in uncharted territory."

Of the other 57 affected countries, 38 have reported 10 cases or fewer, Tedros said. Nineteen countries have reported only one case, and some countries have contained the virus and haven't reported in the last two weeks, he said.

Tedros said health officials would not "hesitate" to declare the outbreak a pandemic if "that's what the evidence suggests." On Friday at a press briefing, he said that most cases of COVID-19 can still be traced to known contacts or clusters of cases and there isn't any "evidence as yet that the virus is spreading freely in communities." That's one reason why WHO hasn't declared the outbreak a pandemic, Tedros said Friday.