United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attends a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland Dec 17, 2019. [Photo/Agencies]

Addressing the challenges facing the world from the novel coronavirus outbreak, the head of the UN urged "a strong feeling of international solidarity, a strong feeling of support to China and all the countries that might be impacted".

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made the remarks on a Tuesday news conference at the United Nations' headquarters in New York.

Guterres said that he was very concerned with avoiding the stigmatization of those who are "innocent and victims of the situation".

He said he believes China has mobilized enormous resources to respond to the outbreak.

Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun, the former director-general of the World Health Organization, also praised China for its prompt and transparent efforts in effectively controlling the spread of the.

She said that it was within about one week that China was able to submit the virus' genetic sequence to the WHO. Many countries, including Tanzania, Germany and Singapore, thanked China for taking appropriate action to protect itself and to protect the rest of the world.

Also on Tuesday, WHO said the novel coronavirus outbreak does not yet constitute a pandemic.

Sylvie Briand, the WHO's director of global infectious hazard preparedness made a statement on Tuesday:"Currently, we are not in a pandemic. We are at the phase where it is an epidemic with multiple foci, and we try to extinguish the transmission in each of these foci."

Briand praised the measures put in place by the Chinese authorities to halt the transmission, including building new hospitals to handle the outbreak. She said that while there is a rapid spread of transmission in Hubei province－the epicenter of the outbreak－cases outside are mainly "spillover" cases, with sporadic clusters of transmission.

Briand added that the WHO would work with representatives of the global travel and tourism industry to work on recommendations for resuming flights to and from China.

She said that people infected with the coronavirus should wear surgical masks. But for others, the masks will not necessarily protect them 100 percent from infection. Washing hands frequently and taking other hygienic measures are also necessary.

Briand also warned of "harmful rumors or misinformation", which she believed "could really be an obstacle for a good response and hamper effective implementation of countermeasures".

"Fear and stigma go together and when people fear they tend to stigmatize some groups and what we try to do really is to reduce this fear," she said.

In an article published on Time magazine's website on Tuesday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the organization is working to counter misinformation and rumors rapidly spreading via social media. Tedros wrote that the Chinese people and China's economy are bearing the brunt of the impact of the novel coronavirus.

"But the country is targeting the hot spots to fight it domestically and to limit its external spread," he said in the article. "We will help China to sustain and step up these efforts."

He wrote that the outbreak can be defeated if people act now, and to do so will require an unprecedented response－driven by global solidarity and collaboration－built on evidence-based action.

Chen Yingqun and Joseph Li contributed to this story.