A viral illness in China that has sickened hundreds of people is not yet a global health emergency, the World Health Organization said Thursday.
WHO issued its evaluation after Chinese authorities moved to lock down three cities earlier in the day and canceled major events in the capital, Beijing, during the Lunar New Year holiday period to try to contain the new virus.
During a news conference in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that while the outbreak clearly rose to an emergency in China, "it has not yet become a global health emergency. It may yet become one."
The decision "should not be taken as a sign that WHO does not think the situation is serious or that we're not taking it seriously."
Nothing could be further from the truth," Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. "WHO is following this outbreak every minute of every day."
The United Nations health agency made the decision after independent experts spent two days assessing information about the spread of the newly identified coronavirus.
"It's too early to consider this as a public health emergency of international concern," Didier Houssin, the chair of the emergency advisory committee, said, noting that the panel "was very divided, almost 50-50."