Just In: WHO renames coronavirus -

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has renamed the dreaded global disease, coronavirus, which originated from Wuhan city in China.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO’s chief in Geneva, Switzerland, called the disease, Covid-19 on Tuesday, February 11.

Ghebreyesus, explaining what influenced the name, said that the organisation needed to come up with a code that is not related to any region to avoid stigmatisation.

He said: “We had to find a name that did not refer to a geographical location, an animal, an individual or group of people, and which is also pronounceable and related to the disease.

“Having a name matters to prevent the use of other names that can be inaccurate or stigmatising. It also gives us a standard format to use for any future coronavirus outbreaks.”

The WHO boss said that the ‘CO’ stands for corona while the ‘VI’ represents virus and the 19 signifies 2019, the years the disease was first diagnosed.

"On Thursday I will travel to Kinshasa, #DRC for meetings with the President and other senior ministers to look beyond #Ebola, and sketch out ways to strengthen DRC’s health system"-@DrTedros #HealthForAll

— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) February 11, 2020

Earlier, The Herald reported that a staff member at a British doctors’ practice in the southern English city of Brighton has tested positive for coronavirus, the BBC reported. The County Oak Medical Centre has been temporarily closed down, the BBC said. It did not cite sources.

Recently, health officials said a case of coronavirus had been identified in Brighton and they were working to prevent any further spread.

A message left at the medical centre’s phone says, Unfortunately, the building has had to close due to an urgent operational health and safety reason.

A British man who has not been identified tested positive for coronavirus in Brighton on Feb. 6 after travelling to Singapore. He has since been taken to St. Thomas’s Hospital in London.

He stayed in a ski chalet in the French ski resort of Les Contamines-Montjoie where five British nationals and a child have been diagnosed with the virus.

A medical centre in the town of Brackley in central England also closed for a few hours on Monday, citing a “potential coronavirus incident’’.