Coronavirus cases outside China top 44,000: WHO

GENEVA -- A total of 44,067 confirmed cases of COVID-19 were reported by 117 countries and regions outside China as of 10:00 CET Thursday, an increase of 6,703 infections compared to the previous day, according to the daily situation report released by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The number of confirmed cases worldwide has risen by 6,729 to 125,048.

Outside China, 310 more people died of COVID-19, bringing the total deaths to 1,440.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Thursday reiterated that countries should not give up on stopping the outbreak now that WHO has characterized it as a pandemic.

He warned a shift from containment to mitigation of the disease would be wrong and dangerous, emphasizing COVID-19 is "a controllable pandemic."

French Polynesia, Turkey, Honduras and Cote d'Ivoire have reported cases of COVID-19 for the first time in the past 24 hours as of Thursday morning, the report showed.

Besides, WHO has revised the transmission classification of Brunei, Luxembourg, Qatar, Kuwait, Morocco and Panama from "imported cases only" to "local transmission", while Pakistan was reclassified from "local transmission" to "imported cases only".

The report showed 71 countries and regions outside China have seen local transmission of COVID-19.