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 Asia reported hundreds of new cases, Brazil confirmed Latin
America's first infection and the new disease - COVID-19 - was also
detected for the first time in Pakistan, Sweden, Norway, Greece,
Romania and Algeria.
U.S. health authorities, managing 59 cases so far - mostly Americans
repatriated from a cruise ship in Japan - have said a global
pandemic is likely.
U.S. President Donald Trump, seeking to calm markets and an
increasingly worried public, said in a live broadcast that the
United States was "very very ready" to face the virus threat and
that Vice President Mike Pence would be in charge of the national
response. It was one of just a handful of times that the president
has appeared in the White House briefing room.
Stock markets across the world have lost $3.3 trillion of value in
four days of trading, as measured by the MSCI all-country index
<.MIWD00000PUS>.
Wall Street reversed earlier gains on Wednesday afternoon and oil
prices dropped to their lowest level in over a year, spooked in part
by health officials saying dozens of people who had been in China
were being monitored in suburbs of populous New York city - although
no confirmed cases have been found.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio urged the federal government to
tighten testing for visitors from a range of countries where the
virus has been spreading, adding that its eventual detection in the
city was "100% certain."
The virus that can lead to pneumonia is believed to have originated
in a market selling wildlife in the central Chinese city of Wuhan
late last year. It has infected about 80,000 people and killed more
than 2,700, the vast majority in China.
While radical quarantining measures have helped slow the rate of
transmission in China, it is accelerating elsewhere.
Germany, which has around 20 cases, said it was already impossible
to trace all chains of infection, and Health Minister Jens Spahn
urged regional authorities, hospitals and employers to review their
pandemic planning.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said China had reported 412 new
cases on Tuesday, while there were 459 in 37 other countries.
However, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus advised diplomats in
Geneva on Wednesday against speaking of a pandemic - which the WHO
defines as the worldwide spread of a new disease.
"Using the word pandemic carelessly has no tangible benefit, but it
does have significant risk in terms of amplifying unnecessary and
unjustified fear and stigma, and paralyzing systems," he said. "It
may also signal that we can no longer contain the virus, which is
not true."
As panic increased, Mexican authorities barred a cruise ship from
docking at one of its ports over what the ship's company said was a
single case of common seasonal flu.
The WHO says the outbreak in China peaked around Feb. 2, after
measures that included isolating its epicenter Hubei province. It
said only 10 new cases were reported in China on Tuesday outside
Hubei.
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There is no known vaccine for the virus. U.S. pharmaceutical firm Gilead
Sciences Inc <GILD.O> said on Wednesday it had started two late-stage studies to
test its experimental antiviral drug remdesivir in humans.
FIRST LATIN AMERICAN CASE
As the cases have rippled outwards, the effects on large gatherings have
increased. In Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for sports and cultural
events to be scrapped or curtailed for two weeks as concern mounted for the 2020
Tokyo Olympics, while sources told Reuters the International Monetary Fund was
considering whether to make its April meeting in Washington virtual.
Latin America's first case was confirmed in a 61-year-old man in Sao Paulo,
Brazil, who had recently visited Italy, a new front line in the global outbreak.
The diagnosis coincided with the carnival holiday, a peak time for domestic
travel. Brazil's stock index fell over 7%.
In addition to Brazil, Italians or people who recently visited Italy have tested
positive in Algeria, Austria, Croatia, Greece, Romania, Spain, Sweden and
Switzerland. Italy itself has reported more than 400 cases, centered on the
industrial heartlands of Lombardy and Veneto.
A hotel in Tenerife in Spain's Canary Islands was locked down over cases linked
to Italy.
"It's very scary because everyone is out, in the pool, spreading the virus,"
said 45-year-old hotel guest Lara Pennington.
In France, a second person died - a teacher who had not visited any country with
a known outbreak.
There have been nearly 50 deaths outside China, including 12 in Italy and 19 in
Iran, according to a Reuters tally.
While Iran has reported only 139 cases, epidemiologists say the death rate of
around 2% seen elsewhere suggest that the true number of cases must be many
times higher.
Cases linked to Iran have been reported across the Middle East. Iraq imposed
travel bans to affected countries and barred public gatherings.
(Interactive graphic tracking global spread of coronavirus https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-HEALTH-MAP/0100B59S39E/index.html)
(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen, Jeff Mason and Susan Heavey in Washington,
Jonathan Allen in New York, Diane Bartz in Chicago, Gavin Jones, Francesca
Piscioneri and Crispian Balmer in Rome, Ryan Woo, Yilei Sun and Lusha Zhang in
Beijing, Kate Kelland in London, Hyonhee Shin and Josh Smith in Seoul, Geert De
Clercq in Paris, Paresi Hafezi and Alexander Cornwell in Dubai and Stephanie
Nebehay and Michael Shields in Geneva; Writing by Kevin Liffey and Rosalba
O'Brien; Editing by John Stonestreet and Bill; Berkrot)
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