GENEVA, June 17. /TASS/. The number of coronavirus cases in the world has surpassed the 8 million mark, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a briefing in Geneva Wednesday.

"The world has now recorded more than 8 million cases of COVID-19," he noted.

"In the first two months, 85,000 cases were reported. In the past two months 6 million cases have been reported," the WHO chief recalled, demonstrating that the pandemic scale is growing. In Americas, Africa and South Asia the number of COVID-19 fatalities already topped 435,000, he said, adding that "COVID-19 cases are still rapidly rising."

At the same time, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also emphasized, "there are green shoots of hope, which show that together through global solidarity, humanity can overcome this pandemic." According to him, many countries "have shown how to effectively suppress the virus with a combination of testing, tracing, and quarantining patients and caring for those that get sick." Moreover, "Lab capacity has been dramatically enhanced across the world to boost COVID-19 testing, which is critical for identifying where the virus is and informing government actions," the WHO head underscored.

In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe. On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.