KATHMANDU: World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General, Tedros Adhanom, in his opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19, said that the COVID-19 could be the first pandemic in history that could be controlled, raising a glimmer of hope given the seriousness and widespread concern surrounding the health issue, on Monday. Adhanom assured of WHO's commitment to combating the COVID-19 epidemic. 'It would be the first pandemic in history that could be controlled,' he added. 'Now that the virus has a foothold in so many countries, the threat of a pandemic has become very real. However, the bottom line is: we are not at the mercy of this virus.' He summed up his speech with a three-line poem that read, 'Let hope be the antidote to fear. Let solidarity be the antidote to blame. Let our shared humanity be the antidote to our shared threat.