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.