The U.N. health agency on Friday upgraded the global risk for the new coronavirus to "very high," saying the continued increase in cases and countries affected was "clearly of concern."

"We have now increased our assessment of the risk of spread and the risk of impact of COVID-19 to very high at global level," the World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.

Tedros says that 24 Covid-19 cases have been exported from Italy to 14 countries and that 97 cases have been exported from Iran to 11 countries, while China's tally of new infections has reached the lowest level in more than a month.

As coronavirus infections proliferate around the world, for the first time there were more daily cases reported outside China than inside the country, where the virus first emerged in December, the WHO said earlier this week. According to the agency, the epidemic has peaked at its epicenter in China, where it has killed around 2,800 people. However, the situation has worsened elsewhere.