COVID-19: WHO names disease caused by new coronavirus
Al JazeeraGlobal health agency says name picked to avoid references to specific location, animal species or group of people. The World Health Organization has announced that “COVID-19” will now be the official name of the disease caused by the new coronavirus from China, saying the disease represented a “very grave threat” for the world but there was a “realistic chance” of stopping it. “We now have a name for the disease and it’s ‘COVID-19’,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told journalists in the Swiss city of Geneva on Tuesday. I’ll spell it: C-O-V-I-D hyphen one nine – COVID-19" –@DrTedros #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/Kh0wx2qfzk — World Health Organization February 11, 2020 Referring to some governments’ counterterrorism measures, Tedros said: “To be honest, a virus is more powerful in creating political, economic and social upheaval than any terrorist attack. “If we invest now … we have a realistic chance of stopping this outbreak.” Stigmatisation The agency had earlier given the virus the temporary name of “2019-nCoV acute respiratory disease” and China’s National Health Commission this week said it was temporarily calling it “novel coronavirus pneumonia” or NCP.