COVID-19 death rate to be 10 times higher than influenza: WHO chief

Without help and action now, poor countries and vulnerable communities could suffer massive devastation, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

A funeral director wears personal protective equipment due to COVID-19 concerns while collecting a body at The Brooklyn Hospital Center, Thursday, April 9, 2020, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (Photo | AP)

GENEVA: The fatality rate of COVID-19 is estimated to be 10 times higher than influenza, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

"This pandemic is much more than a health crisis. It requires a whole-of-government and whole-of-society response," the WHO chief said on Thursday in a mission briefing in Geneva.

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He added that the world is yet to see the devastation it could wreak in poorer and more vulnerable countries. Without help and action now, poor countries and vulnerable communities could suffer massive devastation.

"The window for containing the virus at the sub-national and national level is closing in many countries. The infection numbers in Africa are relatively small now, but they are growing fast," he warned.

"As I said in the press conference yesterday, we must quarantine politicizing this virus at national and global levels. We have to work together, and we have no time to waste," he added.

As per Johns Hopkins University tracker, more than 1.5 million people have been infected, and over 96,000 people have lost their lives.