BERLIN, March 24. /TASS/. The emergency situation over the novel coronavirus pandemic may go on at least until the yearend, Frank Ulrich Montgomery, Chairperson of the World Medical Association’s (WMA) Council, said on Tuesday.

"This problem will obviously be with us until the end of the year," he said in an interview with DPA agency.

"We will have to rearrange our entire social life and labor activities until a vaccine against the infection is developed," he said, adding that he hailed the German government’s decision to limit social contacts.

A pneumonia outbreak caused by the COVID-19 virus (previously known as 2019-nCoV) was reported in China’s city of Wuhan, a large trade and industrial center with a population of 12 million, in late December 2019. Cases of the new coronavirus have also been reported from more than 150 countries, including Russia. The World Health Organization (WHO) has officially described the situation with the novel coronavirus as a pandemic.

Set up in 1947, the World Medical Association is an international organization bringing together more than 100 national medical associations, including Russia’s. It is tasked with elaborating the ethical norms of medical activities that medical doctors are bound to in all countries.