 World Health Organization (WHO) emergencies director Mike Ryan (Photo: Reuters) |
"In a sense, South America has become a new epicentre of the disease. We have seen many South American countries with increasing numbers of cases. Clearly there is a concern across many of those countries, but clearly the most affected is Brazil at this point."
According to the US’s University of John Hopkins, as of Friday, following the US and Russia, Brazil is the 3rd biggest epicenter with 315,000 infections and 20,000 deaths from the novel coronavirus. Experts said Brazil will soon surpass the US in the number of infections and the Brazilian medical system is on the verge of collapse. Peru and Chile are also being seriously affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.