GENEVA: The World Health Organisation (WHO) said that the European Union (EU) has emerged to be a new epicentre of Coronavirus or Covid-19, first appeared in China’s Wuhan city that has now spread to nearly 150 countries worldwide.

“Europe has now become the epicentre of the pandemic,” the WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a press conference Friday said.

Tedros further said that apart from China, the continent had now more reported cases and deaths than the rest of the world combined.

The organisation has already declared the novel Coronavirus as a pandemic, and cautioned the countries and asked to take preventive steps aggressively.

More than 5,000 deaths have been reported so far with nearly a million individuals infected, according to unconfirmed sources. Outside China, Italy is worst affected with more than 1,020 deaths

“More cases are now being reported every day than were reported in China at the height of the epidemic,” the WHO chief added.

The Solidarity Response Fund, set up by the UN Foundation would raise money from a wide range of donors to support the work of the WHO and partners to help countries respond to the new pandemic.

The fund, according to the organisation, would be the first-of-its-kind that enables private individuals, corporations and institutions anywhere in the world to come together to directly contribute to tackling Covid-19.