COVID19 CASES CROSS 5 MILLION MARK WORLDWIDE; BIGGEST SPIKE IN A SINGLE DAY! DOES INDIA FIGURE IN TOP 4 COUNTRIES? - REPORT

The World Health Organization on Wednesday expressed concern over the rising number of new coronavirus cases especially in the poor countries, although many rich countries have started lifting the lockdown to restore normalcy. 

The global health agency said that 106,000 new cases of infections had been recorded over the past 24 hours. This is the biggest single day spike the world has seen since the beginning of the outbreak. 

"We still have a long way to go in this pandemic. We are very concerned about rising cases in low- and middle-income countries,”  Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general told the media.

Earlier in the week, WHO was under scrutiny from U.S. President Donald Trump, who criticised the global health body stating that they have mishandled the outbreak and favouring China. Trump also threatened to withdraw funding permanently from WHO. 

When Tedros was questioned about it, he said he received the letter but did not comment further 

“Tedros said he was committed to accountability and would carry out a review into the response to the pandemic. Such a review was demanded by member states in a resolution this week that was passed by consensus, although the United States expressed reservations about some elements of it,” India Today cited in its report.

"I said it time and time again that WHO calls for accountability more than anyone. It has to be done and when it's done it has to be a comprehensive one," Tedros said. 

Michael Ryan, Executive Director of World Health Organization’s health emergencies programme stated that such assessments are normally conducted after an emergency is over. 

He also further told that people should avoid using Hydroxychloroquine pills to treat or prevent COVID19.

"At this stage, (neither) hydroxychloroquine nor chloroquine have been as yet found to be effective in the treatment of COVID-19 nor in the prophylaxis against coming down with the disease. In fact, the opposite, in that warnings have been issued by many authorities regarding the potential side effects of the drug, Ryan added.

India stands 11th in the list of countries that have the highest number of COVID19 cases. USA tops the list followed by Russian Federation and Brazil.