‘Test, test, test’: WHO chief’s coronavirus message to world

The World Health Organization called on all countries on Monday to ramp up their testing programs as the best way to slow the advance of the coronavirus pandemic, and also urged companies to boost production of vital equipment to overcome acute shortages.

“We have a simple message to all countries – test, test, test,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference in Geneva, calling the pandemic “the defining global health crisis of our time”.

“All countries should be able to test all suspected cases, they cannot fight this pandemic blindfolded.”

Without testing, cases cannot be isolated and the chain of infection will not be broken, he said.

Even countries with advanced health systems have struggled to cope with the outbreak, Tedros said, adding he was deeply concerned about its effects on low-income countries where people already struggled with malnutrition and other health problems.

In the United States, the Trump administration has come under fire from critics for what they say has been a slow gearing up of testing for the new virus.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence promised on Sunday that Americans would have access in the days ahead to more than 2,000 laboratories capable of processing tests.