The World Health Organization (WHO) said today that it is seeing a "very big acceleration" in the spread of coronavirus infection in the United States, which has the potential to become the new epicenter, Reuters reported.

In the past 24 hours, 84 percent of new cases have been in Europe and the US, WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris told reporters. Of these, 40 percent are in the United States. Asked if the US could become the new epicenter of the contagion, she replied, "We now see a very large acceleration of cases in the US. So they have this potential."

According to the spokeswoman, the spread of the infection in the United States is "very high and increasing in intensity". Harris added that worldwide distribution is also accelerating rapidly and an increase in the number of cases and deaths is expected from the 334 981 and 14 510 registered so far, respectively.