Scientists and disease experts say the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak could soon be declared a pandemic. The World Health Organisation last week designated the coronavirus – whose scientific name is 2019-nCoV – a "public-health emergency of international concern." Calling the virus a pandemic would take it to a new level, however, since that term refers to a more global outbreak. The coronavirus is "very, very transmissible, and it almost certainly is going to be a pandemic," Anthony Fauci, the director of the US's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told The New York Times on Sunday. Here are criteria for a virus to be labelled a pandemic: The WHO defines a pandemic as "the worldwide spread of a new disease." |