WHO expert Mike Ryan warns ten per cent of global population may have contract COVID-19

Roughly one in 10 people may have been infected with coronavirus, leaving the vast majority of the world's population vulnerable to the COVID-19 disease it causes, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.

Mike Ryan, the WHO's top emergencies expert, was addressing the agency's Executive Board when he gave the estimate, which is more than 20 times the number of confirmed global cases.

Dr Ryan said as he warned the world was "heading into a difficult period," and that as South-east Asia faced a surge in cases, Europe and the eastern Mediterranean were seeing an increase, while the situations in Africa and the Western Pacific were "rather more positive."

"The disease continues to spread. It is on the rise in many parts of the world," he said

"Our current best estimates tell us that about 10 per cent of the global population may have been infected by this virus."

Dr Michael Ryan says the WHO has submitted a list of experts to travel to China for an investigation into the origins of the pandemic.

Zhang Yang of China's National Health Commission, said: "China has always been transparent and responsible to fulfil our international obligations."

The WHO and other experts have said that the virus, believed to have emerged in a food market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year, is of animal origin.

• The WHO has said most of the world remains at risk from the spread of coronavirus.

• Australia has reiterated its calls for a timely investigation into the origins of the pandemic.

• Russia has said it wants an evaluation of the consequences of the US leaving WHO.