The World Health Organization (WHO) voiced deep concern on Wednesday about the rapid escalation and global spread of the coronavirus."In the next few days, we will reach 1 million confirmed cases and 50,000 deaths worldwide," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

According to Coronavirus COVID-19 Global cases by the center at Johns Hopkins University by Thursday  there were a total of 962,977 cases worldwide with the US leading at 216,768, Italy had 110,574, Spain 110,238, China 82,431 while  Germany had 80,641 confirmed cases.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said there has been "a near exponential  growth" in case numbers over the past five weeks, affecting practically every country, territory and area of the world.

"As we enter the fourth month since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, I am deeply concerned about the rapid escalation and global spread of infection", he stated.

On the African continent, South Africa's tally was still the highest pegged at 1380 confirmed cases as of Thursday.

Although Africa, Central America and South America have reported relatively lower numbers of cases, Tedros warned that the disease could have "serious social, economic and political consequences" in these regions.

"It is critical that we ensure these countries are well equipped to detect, test, isolate and treat cases, and identify contacts. I am encouraged to see that this is occurring in many countries, despite limited resources", he said.

Meanwhile, 74 countries have responded to the UN health agency's call to participate in a "Solidarity Trial" to compare four promising drugs or drug combinations, which might help treat COVID-19, and save the lives of those worst affected. More than 200 patients are taking part so far and have been randomly assigned to one of the study tracks.

Tedros said "each new patient who joins the trial gets us one step closer to knowing which drugs work."

The trial was announced last Friday and aims to reduce the time needed to generate evidence about which medicines are safe and effective against the new virus.

Source: W.H.O