COVID-19: WHO Boss self quarantines after contact tests positive for coronavirus
(FILES) In this file photo taken on March 09, 2020, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaks during a daily press briefing on COVID-19 virus at the WHO headquaters in Geneva. - US President Donald Trump announced on April 14, 2020, a suspension of US funding to the World Health Organization because he said it had covered up the seriousness of the COVID-19 outbreak in China before it spread around the world. Trump told a press conference he was instructing his administration to halt funding while "a review is conducted to assess the World Health Organization's role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus." (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP) (Photo by FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images)
Victoria Ogunrinde
The World Health Organization (WHO) boss said that he was self-quarantining after someone he had been in contact with tested positive for Covid-19 however stressed that he had no symptoms.
Director General WHO, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus in a tweet late Sunday said “I have been identified as a contact of someone who has tested positive for #COVID19.”
“I am well and without symptoms but will self-quarantine over the coming days, in line with @WHO protocols, and work from home,” he added.
Dr. Tedros has been at the forefront of the United Nations health agency’s efforts to battle the pandemic however, he stressed on Twitter that “it is critically important that we all comply with health guidance.”
“This is how we will break chains of #COVID19 transmission, suppress the virus, and protect health systems.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Tedros has for months reiterated that each person has a role to play in halting the spread of the virus.
Covid-19 has claimed nearly 1.2 million lives and infected over 46 million people worldwide since emerging in China late last year.
The WHO urges all individuals to be careful about hand-washing, wearing masks and keeping a distance, while it calls on authorities at various levels to work to find, isolate, test and care for cases, then trace and quarantine their contacts.
However, the WHO boss comments came as there is growing anger and exasperation over new coronavirus curbs as several European nations wound back the clocks to the spring with fresh lockdowns and restrictions aimed at halting galloping infections and deaths.
The continent has registered more than 279,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic.