The new coronavirus pandemic is clearly "accelerating", the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned, but said it was still possible to change its trajectory by going on the attack.
The remarks came as the number of deaths soared past 15,000, with more than 341,000 people infected worldwide, according to a tally compiled by AFP from official sources.
"The pandemic is accelerating," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual news conference on Monday.
Tedros pointed out that it took 67 days from the beginning of the outbreak in China in December for the virus to infect the first 100,000 people worldwide.
In comparison, it took 11 days for the second 100,000 cases and just four days for the third 100,000 cases, he said.
The number of officially recorded cases is believed to represent only a fraction of the true number of infections, with many countries only testing the most severe cases in need of hospitalisation.
"We are not helpless bystanders. We can change the trajectory of this pandemic," Tedros said.
(Source: Al Jazeera)