Representative image. Image courtesy: Chiang Rai Times

Coronavirus (COVID-19) infection cases are on the rise across the globe with positive cases reaching 100,000 mark.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has dispelled the hope that the virus will disappear in the summer.

All countries should make containment their top priority and hoping that the virus will disappear in the summer is a ‘false hope’, a top official of WHO was quoted as saying.

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“We have to assume that the virus will continue to have the capacity to spread and it is a false hope to say that it’ll disappear in the summertime like the influenza virus,” said Dr Michael J Ryan, WHO executive director.

“We hope it does, that’ll be a godsend, but we cannot make that assumption and there is no evidence right now to suggest that, that will happen,” he added.

“So we need to fight the virus now, not hope that the virus will disappear on its own,”he also said.

Meanwhile, the worldwide death toll due to COVID-19 has crossed 3400 with 101,400 infected cases.

China has affected the most with 3070 death and 80651 infection cases followed by Italy with 197 deaths and 4636 infection cases.

The European country added 49 deaths in the last 24 hours.

West Asian country Iran is the third most-affected country with 124 deaths followed by 44 deaths and 6767 infection cases.

In India, the COVID-19 infection cases have risen to 31 as Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a meeting with Health Minister Dr Harshvardhan on Saturday.

Meanwhile, two suspected cases have been identified in Jammu & Kashmir.