Epidemic would have been worse without China measures: WHO official

CORONAVIRUS | The novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak in Wuhan would have been worse without China's measures, said Gauden Galea, World Health Organisation's (WHO) representative in the country, in a China Global Television Network (CGTN) exclusive interview on Wednesday.

The official earlier led a team to Wuhan, the epicentre of the viral spread, to inspect local conditions just before the city was sealed.

Galea (above) was impressed by the swift measures China had taken and said that the dedication of every person involved in the battle against the virus should be fully respected.

"Our lasting impression of Wuhan is of the dedication of the workers there... (including) scientists who have been involved in the identification of the cases, the cluster, and in defining the response."

"We must respect the sacrifice (of the people) of Wuhan and other cities that have gone into this sort of social distancing, an exercise to try and interrupt transmission," he said.

Despite criticism of violating the human rights of Wuhan residence with a government lockdown, Galea said this move effectively curbed the spread of the virus.

"Reducing as much as possible the numbers of contact between people is an extremely promising way of controlling and breaking the transmission," he said.

WHO declared a public health emergency of international concern last Thursday. In the same statement, it said that all countries should be prepared for containment, including active surveillance, early detection, isolation and case management, contact tracing and prevention of the onward spread of the virus and to share full data with WHO.

Galea acknowledged that the actions taken by China have contributed to the protection of global health.

"We are seeing cases outside China, but it is safe to say, that without the measures taken both locally as well as nationally, we would have seen a much larger spread," he said.

- CCTV+