MANILA, Philippines — The World Health Organization on Tuesday said it does not see any benefit of the
general public wearing masks amid the novel coronavirus (2019-
nCoV) threat.
Rabindra
Abeyasinghe, acting WHO representative in the Philippines, said it would be preferable to reserve masks for high-risk individuals, including health workers.
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"Our message is that we need to be rational about the use of masks. Factually, it shows that non-symptomatic people using masks — it will give them a false sense of confidence and put them at more risk because they
tend to wash hands less,"
Abeyasinghe said in a Senate hearing.
The WHO representative stressed that people with respiratory symptoms need to practice cough etiquette and wear masks but everybody should wash their hands frequently.
Abeyasinghe added that those with respiratory symptoms, such as coughs and colds, should wear their masks properly and wash their hands regularly.
"Just because you wear a mask you should not neglect keeping your hands clean because if you touch the mask and if you have droplets on the outer surface of the mask that somebody else coughed on, you can get infected so what is more important is hand hygiene," he said.
The WHO doctor also warned that the virus can be present on utensils and other home items where an infected person has coughed.
Citing evidence,
Abeyasinghe told the Senate inquiry that the virus can survive on those surfaces from eight to 10 hours.
"If you have somebody sick who is having respiratory symptoms make sure
that you
make an effort to clean surfaces that
are handled by those people," the WHO representative said.
China's National Health Commission confirmed that infections in the 2019-
nCoV outbreak have passed 20,400 nationwide with 3,235 cases confirmed.
The first death from the virus has been recorded in the Philippines last Saturday, which is also the second confirmed case of the illness in the country.
The Department of Health announced that a 44-year-old Chinese man, which is a companion of the first confirmed 2019-
nCoV patient in the country, died days after
he was admitted for fever, cough and sore throat.