The World Trade Organization (WTO) said that it would suspend all meetings by March 20 after a staff member tested positive for a coronavirus.

In a statement, the CEO of the Geneva-based organization Roberto Azevedo said Wednesday that all meetings would be canceled and that situation would continue until at least the end of next week.

“We take the health of the staff of the Secretariat and our members very seriously, which is why we have taken this unprecedented step”, said Roberto Azevedo. “We are closely monitoring the situation and will take all necessary measures to protect our health and safety”, added he.

According to the latest coronavirus update, the confirmed cases are 119,564, while the death toll exceeded 4,300 people and the confirmed recovered are 66,666. The situation in China is normalizing with the number of new cases declined significantly. The total cases in China are 80,788 with a death toll of 3,158. However, the situation in Italy is escalating and yesterday the country reported the highest deaths per day since the outbreak of the epidemic – 168. The country put under quarantine 16 million people.