More people have been diagnosed with the coronavirus outside of China, where it originated, than within, with the World Health Organization urging more widespread testing.
WHO confirmed today that both the total number of cases and death toll worldwide had risen and overtaken that of China.
To stop the spread, countries need to be testing and isolating people, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a briefing today.
"We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test," he says.
"You cannot fight a fire blindfolded. And we cannot stop this pandemic if we don’t know who is infected."
Social distancing and self-isolation is helping, but won't be able to break the pandemic on their own, Dr Tedros says.
"Test every suspected covid-19 case. If they test positive, isolate them and find out who they have been in close contact with up to two days before they developed symptoms and test those people too."
Both the UK and US are coming under fire for their treatment of the coronavirus outbreak, with little testing being done comparatively.
In New Zealand, the guidelines for testing were expanded as the outbreak continued to allow more suspected cases to be seen.
Anyone who thinks they may have contracted Covid-19 or been exposed to a confirmed or suspected case is urged to contact Healthline or their GP, but they need to call ahead instead of turning up at a medical centre unannounced.
More than 1.5 million tests have been distributed by WHO to more than 120 countries, Dr Tedros says.
More Covid-19 tests are still being produced to meet the global demand.
Dr Tedros ended his briefing on a message of hope, praising the "amazing spirit of human solidarity".
"Although we may have to be physically apart from each other for a while, we can come together in ways we never have before," he says.
"We’re all in this together. And we can only succeed together."
There are more than 169,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 worldwide, with 6513 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The most cases in a single location outside of China is in Italy, with more than 21,000 confirmed cases, WHO reports.
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