COVID-19 is a 'controllable pandemic': WHO chief

GENEVA: The new coronavirus outbreak "is a controllable pandemic" if countries step up measures to tackle it, the head of the World Health Organization said on Thursday.

"We are deeply concerned that some countries are not approaching this threat with the level of political commitment needed to control it," WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told diplomats in Geneva, according to a statement.