Switzerland

GENEVA, April 1 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A UN human rights expert called for lifting international sanctions against countries ranging from Iran to North Korea and Venezuela to ensure that food supplies reach hungry populations during the coronavirus pandemic.

Iran, under sweeping US sanctions for its nuclear and missile programmes, is among the hardest-hit by the new pathogen. Venezuela has notified 113 cases to the World Health Organization (WHO), while isolated North Korea, which borders on China and South Korea, has yet to report any.

GENEVA (Reuters) - The head of the World Health Organization voiced deep concern on Wednesday about the rapid escalation and global spread of COVID-19 cases from the new coronavirus, which has now reached 205 countries and territories.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that his agency, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund backed debt relief to help developing countries cope with the pandemic’s social and economic consequences.

GENEVA, March 31. /TASS/: A total of 750,890 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus and 36,405 coronavirus-related death were registered worldwide as of 10 am Geneva time (noon Moscow time) on March 30, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in its daily bulletin on Tuesday.

The number of confirmed cases grew by more than 57,000 in the past 24 hours and the number of fatalities increased by 3,301.

Lausanne, Mar 31 (PTI) The International Olympic Committee's athletes commission on Tuesday welcomed the announcement of new dates for the Olympics, saying the declaration has given those bound for Tokyo "much-needed certainty" after the mega-event's postponement to 2021.

In a statement, the IOC athletes commission, which also features India's lone individual Olympic gold-medallist Abhinav Bindra, lauded the announcement of new dates -- July 23 to August 8, 2021 -- within days of the event's postponement due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.

GENEVA, March 29. /TASS/: A total of 571,678 coronavirus cases and 26,494 deaths have been confirmed globally as of 10 a.m. Geneva time on March 28, according to a new bulletin released by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Saturday.

GENEVA, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Calling it "a second window of opportunity", the chief of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday urged countries to use this critical window now to suppress and stop transmission of COVID-19.

This window of opportunity was created by those countries and regions which introduced unprecedented "lockdown" measures to contain COVID-19 pandemic, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted at a daily briefing, reminding that these measures will not extinguish epidemics on their own.

25 March 2020; AFP: The UN's health agency has faced criticism in the past for overreacting and for moving too slowly in fighting epidemics, but it has rarely faced as much scrutiny as with the coronavirus pandemic.

The World Health Organization was deemed too alarmist when it faced the H1N1 epidemic in 2009 but five years later it was accused of dragging its feet in declaring an emergency over the Ebola outbreak in west Africa, which would go on to kill more than 11,000 people.

GENEVA, March 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The World Health Organization said that the United States could become the global epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic.

WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris told reporters there had been a “very large acceleration” in infections in the United States.

Over the previous 24 hours, 85 per cent of new cases were in Europe and the United States, and of those, 40 per cent were in the United States.

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — The IOC will take up to four weeks to consider postponing the Tokyo Olympics amid mounting criticism of its handling of the coronavirus crisis that now includes Canada saying it won’t send a team to the games this year and the leader of track and field, the biggest sport at the games, also calling for a delay.

GENEVA, March 21. /TASS/: About 20 vaccines against the novel coronavirus are currently being developed worldwide, said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the technical lead for WHO’s emergencies program.

"At least 20 vaccines are in development for COVID-19. Their first clinic trials are already starting," she said.