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A police officer walks in front of Huanan Seafood Wholesale market in Wuhan, where the coronavirus was detected. (Credit: Hector Retamal/ AFP)
Cases of the new coronavirus are likely to continue to rise in China and it is too soon to evaluate its severity, a spokesman for the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.
"The focus is not so much on the [case] numbers, which we know will go up," WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told a Geneva news briefing.
Jasarevic added: "It's still too early to draw conclusions on how severe the virus is."
The UK government was due to start an emergency meeting at 12:00 local time on Friday to discuss the coronavirus outbreak. Senior ministers will attend, although there are no confirmed cases of the virus so far in the UK, according to a spokesman for the UK prime minister Boris Johnson.
UK health secretary, Matt Hancock, said yesterday that "there is an increased risk that cases may arise in this country." But he also said: "We are well prepared and equipped to deal with them."
The WHO and its network of experts may look into treatments for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) for potential use against the new coronavirus.
More than a dozen people in the UK have been tested for the new strain of coronavirus, according to Public Health England. They have not provided any details about the locations of the cases.
Five people have tested negative, while there are nine other people waiting results. An incident team has been set up in Scotland, where five of the tests happened, to deal with the health threat.
There are more than 800 confirmed global cases of the virus and 26 people have died from it in China.
According to Public Health Wales, one person was tested last week and cleared. Downing Street said four of the five people being tested in Scotland were likely to be Chinese.
Another man was being treated in Belfast for symptoms similar to those of the virus.
Johnson's spokesman said: "These measures are purely precautionary and nobody has tested positive."
