World Health Organisation ‘closely monitoring’ China’s viral pneumonia outbreak
- UN body says it is in close contact with the authorities over mysterious strain of illness in Wuhan city
- Chinese authorities say number of cases has reached 44 as efforts to identify cause of outbreak continues
The World Health Organisation said on Saturday that it had activated its disease incident management system and was closely monitoring the outbreak of an unidentified strain of viral pneumonia in central China.
The announcement came after the number of cases reported by Chinese authorities in Wuhan, a city with a population of 11 million, had jumped to 44 from 27 in the space of three days.
“We’re closely monitoring the situation in Wuhan and are in active communication with our counterparts in China,” the WHO’s Western Pacific regional office said in a statement.
It said the authorities in Beijing had been in contact and its incident management system had been activated at the national and regional levels and in its headquarters in Geneva.
The WHO said that it “can launch a broader response if needed”and continued:“Govt actions to control the incident have been instituted and investigations into the cause are ongoing.”