Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has warned that the worst of coronavirus, which has already affected millions of people across the globe, is yet to come.

The Director General reportedly said in a video conference that the world must act together on a national and global scale to overcome the pandemic. Reiterating his calls for global solidarity and national unity, Ghebreyesus warned of dire consequences if we were to fail. "It has a very dangerous combination and this is happening in hundred years for the first time again, like the 1918 flu that killed up to 100 million people. But now we have technology, we can prevent that disaster, we can prevent that kind of crisis. Trust us. The worst is yet ahead of us. Let's prevent this tragedy. It's a virus that many people still don't understand," he told reporters in Geneva.

Regarding US President Donald Trump's claim that the health organization was being "very China-centric" and his subsequent move to cut off funding from the United States, the Director General stated, "My focus is saving lives, we don't do politics in the WHO. There is a very clear line: a fight between humanity and this virus. That's it. That's what we should use to fight and win."

COVID-19 has claimed the lives of more than 177600 people and infected over 2556500 people across the world. The virus was first identified in Wuhan, Hubei Province, in China. As the death toll and overall cases began rising rapidly across the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global health emergency and the outbreak has now been labelled a pandemic. A total of 1596 cases have been registered in Tamil Nadu so far, while 20080 cases have been confirmed across India. Tamil Nadu has reported 18 deaths while 645 people have succumbed to the illness across the country.