The chief of the World Health Organization (WHO), urged countries to utilize "the second window of opportunity" to suppress and stop the further transmission of the deadly coronavirus.
He said that this window of opportunity was created by those countries that introduced unprecedented "lockdown" measures to contain the deadly coronavirus outbreak, Xinhua news agency quoted WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus as saying on Wednesday, reminding that these measures will not extinguish epidemics on their own.
Tedros outlined six key actions to enable the more precise and targeted measures.
He urged countries to expand, train and deploy health care and public health workforce, implement a system to find every suspected case at the community level, and ramp up the production, capacity, and availability of testing.
The WHO chief also suggested identifying, adapting and equipping facilities for treating and isolating patients, developing a clear plan and process to quarantine contacts, as well as refocusing the whole of government on suppressing and controlling COVID-19.
"These measures are the best way to suppress and stop transmission, so that when restrictions are lifted, the virus doesn't resurge," said Tedros.
The COVID-19 has so far infected over 4,70,000 worldwide and resulted in the deaths of more than 21,200.
In terms of cases, China, where the virus emerged last December, reported the highest at 81,667, followed by Italy (74,386), the US (68,960) and Spain (49,515).
Italy, the worst-affected outside China, has the highest global death toll at 7,503, followed by Spain (3,647), China (3,285) and the US (1,041).