Coronavirus latest: World Health Organisation plays down treatment hopes

L’OMS minimise les informations faisant état d’un traitement contre  virus

L’Organisation mondiale de la santé a minimisé les informations selon lesquelles les médias chinois ont fait une percée dans les tentatives de trouver un remède à la souche actuelle de coronavirus.

« Il n’y a pas de thérapeutique efficace connue contre ce 2019-nCoV », a déclaré un porte-parole de l’organisme international au FT.

L’organisation a ajouté qu’elle recommande que tout médicament potentiel soit inscrit à un essai contrôlé randomisé et qu’elle devrait tenir une conférence de presse à 15 heures, heure de Londres.

Les marchés boursiers et les matières premières se sont à nouveau redressés aujourd’hui, les traders attribuant au moins certains des mouvements aux espoirs d’un traitement révolutionnaire.

L’indice Stoxx Europe 600 a abandonné une partie des gains marqués de cette session après l’annonce de l’OMS, même s’il continuait de progresser de 1% il ya quelques instants.

En Prime:

Xi calls for crackdown as fight against virus reaches ‘crucial stage’ Christian Shepherd reports from Beijing: Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday warned that the fight against the virus was at a “crucial stage” and called for those who undermined prevention measures to be held to account by law. Mr Xi, who was speaking to Chinese Communist party committee tasked with improving China’s legal system, stressed that it was “vital” for efforts to curb the outbreak to remain “scientific” and in accordance with Chinese law. Violence against doctors, price gouging, “rumour mongering”, selling fake goods, rejecting prevention measures and the misuse of donations meant for fighting to virus were singled out by Mr Xi as punishable offences. The statement comes as many in China have raised concerns about the provision of medical supplies, especially in central Hubei province, the centre of the outbreak, where hospitals are overworked. A number of medical masks sellers have been punished for selling knockoff products. Philip Georgiadis 32 MINUTES AGO

WHO plays down reports of virus treatment The World Health Organisation has played down Chinese media reports of a breakthrough in attempts to find a cure to the current strain of coronavirus. « There are no known effective therapeutics against this 2019-nCoV , » a spokesman for the international body told the FT. The organisation added that it recommends any potential drugs are enrolled into a randomised controlled trial, and is scheduled to hold a press conference at 3pm London time. Stock markets and commodities have rallied again today, with traders attributing at least some of the moves to hopes of a breakthrough treatment. The Stoxx Europe 600 index gave up some of this session’s sharp gains following the WHO’s announcement, although it was still trading 1 per cent higher a few moments ago.