A viral illness in China that has sickened hundreds of people and prompted Chinese authorities to effectively shut down three cities is not yet a global health emergency, the World Health Organization said Thursday. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that while the epidemic was clearly a crisis in China, “it has not yet become a global health emergency. It may yet become one.”The steps taken by China to shut down cities with more than 18 million people are unprecedented in public health. A declaration of a global emergency typically brings greater money and resources, but may also prompt nervous foreign governments to restrict travel and trade to affected countries. In 2014, WHO resisted declaring the devastating Ebola epidemic in West Africa a global emergency because it feared the announcement would anger Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Source: Los Angeles Times January 23, 2020 21:00 UTC