The World Health Organization(WHO) has raised its assessment of the risk of spread and impact of the coronavirus at a global level to "very high."

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus held a media briefing on COVID-19 at the WHO headquarters in Geneva on Friday. He stated that both the increase in the number of cases and the number of affected countries over the last few days, are clearly of concern.

He noted that since Thursday, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Nigeria have all reported their first cases, and that every case is linked back to Italy. He then added that 24 cases have been exported from Italy to 14 countries.

He stated that while several countries are reporting linked epidemics of COVID-19, most cases can still be traced to known contacts or clusters. He then stressed that the WHO does not see evidence, as of yet, that the virus is spreading freely throughout communities.

The director-general said that as long as that’s the case, there is still chance of containing the virus if robust action is taken to detect cases earlier on, isolate and care for patients, and trace contacts.

He also noted that progress is being made on vaccines and therapeutics, adding that more than 20 vaccines are in development globally and that several therapeutics are in their clinical trials.

The WHO chief said he is expecting the first results to come out in a few weeks.