2 At its second meeting, held on January 30 th, the number of cases and countries reporting confirmed cases were seen to have increased and this lead to the outbreak being declared a PHEIC. Consensus was not reached by that meeting as to whether the event was a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). The first Emergency Committee meeting about the novel coronavirus outbreak in China, convened by WHO in accordance with the International Health Regulations (IHR) (2005), was held on January 23 rd 2020. The etiological agent was rapidly identified as a novel coronavirus: SARS-COV-2 The outbreak began in a seafood and live animals market and, as at the date of this publication, the animal reservoir is unknown. On December 31 st 2019 the World Health Organization (WHO) was notified of the occurrence of a pneumonia outbreak in the city of Wuhan, Hubei Province, People’s Republic of China.
