You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Sean Lay.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the programme and I hope you enjoy it.

Hello and welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Sean Lay.

Get Ready is the message from health experts fighting the coronavirus, COVID-19.

At least 80,000 people are already infected in more

than 40 countries, and that number is expected to rise. My guest today is David Heyman. He's

Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine,

and he's one of the advisors of the World Health Organization on its response

to coronavirus. Is the WHO moving quickly enough or are powerful countries slowing its response,

and will the price be paid by those unlucky enough to get sick?

David Heyman, welcome to Hard Talk. Do you think it is on the point of becoming a pandemic?

Well, you know, the word pandemic is really a distracting word because it means different things to different people.

What needs to be done is countries need to do their own risk assessment and decide what they can do best,

whether it's to lock down the virus in small outbreaks

or to begin strategies that would be in place should it begin to spread wider in the community.

In what way do you think this word is unhelpful? Because a lot of people have regarded this as

simply a way of defining the worldwide spread of a disease, making the point that it is simultaneously

in different places, and that that can kind of trigger an international response. Well, there are

several reasons. First of all, the WHO uses the term public health emergency of international concern,

and they've already called this an emergency of international concern. But they did wait until the 30th of January to do it.

They waited, and they...

They waited, and they... Perhaps it should have been a bit sooner.

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