WHO Chief hopes COVID-19 pandemic will be over in 'less than 2 years'

"We hope to finish this pandemic (in) less than two years, especially if we can pool our efforts," WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Friday said during a press briefing.

Terming COVID-19 as a 'once-in-a-century health crisis', Tedros, Compared to back then, the world today is at a disadvantage due to its "globalisation, closeness, connectedness", which has allowed the novel coronavirus to spread around the world at lightning speed, Tedros acknowledged.

Tedros said that over the past two weeks, the number of cases outside China had increased 13-fold and the number of affected countries had tripled.

He said he expected the number of cases and deaths would grow in the coming days and weeks.

"Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly," he told reporters, but he stressed that "describing the situation as a pandemic does not change WHO's assessment of the threat posed by the virus."

As many as 23,097,175 people around the world have been diagnosed with Covid-19. While more than 15,174,876 have recovered, 787,567 have died so far. The US, the worst-hit country, has 5,795,777 cases. It is followed by Brazil, which has 3,411,872.

India has recorded 69,878  coronavirus  cases in the past 24 hours, taking its total to 2,975,701.