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"China is confident in and capable of effectively containing the novel coronavirus epidemic, and eventually defeating it," Efe news quoted the country's National Health Commission as saying in a statement.The death toll deaths and infections rose considerably on Friday to 213 fatalities (43 more than the previous day) and 9,692 confirmed cases in the country, an increase of 1,981, health authorities reported.Although 99 per cent of the global cases are in China, an emergency committee of 15 experts, convened by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, declared the global alert on on Thursday night.The alert had been ruled out a week ago but has now been declared after the appearance of several infections in countries such as Germany, Japan, the US and Vietnam in people who had not recently travelled to China."The Chinese government attaches great importance to the prevention and control of pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus and has taken the strictest measures to curb the epidemic," the Commission added.The agency hoped that "the international community understand and support China's efforts in preventing and controlling the epidemic and make concerted efforts with China to contain the epidemic, and maintain global health security according to the suggestions of IHR and WHO".While issuing the WHO alert, Adhanom had said that "the main reason for this declaration is not because of what is happening in China, but because of what is happening in other countries" and owing to "the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems, and which are ill-prepared to deal with it".However, "this declaration is not a vote of no confidence in China. On the contrary, WHO continues to have confidence in China's capacity to control the outbreak", clarified the official, who travelled to Beijing this week and met Chinese President Xi Jinping to analyze the advance of the epidemic.This is the sixth time the WHO has declared a public-health emergency of international concern after it did so during the outbreaks of H1N1 in 2009; the Ebola virus in West Africa in 2014 and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2019; polio in 2014; and the Zika virus in 2016.The nearly 10,000 confirmed cases in China are almost double those of the severe acute respiratory syndrome, SARS during the outbreak between November 2002 and August 2003 (5,327 cases).There have been no deaths recorded outside of China.Outside of China, Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan, other countries with confirmed cases include Thailand, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, South Korea, the US, France, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Italy, Vietnam, Cambodia, Finland, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Philippines.The symptoms of the new coronavirus, provisionally designated by the WHO as 2019-nCoV, are similar to those of cold but may be accompanied by fever and fatigue, dry cough and dyspnea (shortness of breath).( With inputs from IANS )

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