World Health Organization Director General announced on Friday that China has reported a total of 78,959 cases of COVID-19 to WHO, including 2791 deaths as of this morning. Outside China, there are now 4351 cases in 49 countries, and 67 deaths.

Since yesterday, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Netherlands and Nigeria have all reported their first cases. All these cases have links to Italy.

24 cases have been exported from Italy to 14 countries, and 97 cases have been exported from Iran to 11 countries.

“The continued increase in the number of cases, and the number of affected countries over the last few days, are clearly of concern. Our epidemiologists have been monitoring these developments continuously, and we have now increased our assessment of the risk of spread and the risk of impact of COVID-19 to very high at a global level.”

According to WHO, more than 20 vaccines are in development globally, and several therapeutics are in clinical trials. We expect the first results in a few weeks.