A team of experts from China and the World Health Organization visit a hospital in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei province, Feb 23, 2020. (ZHU XINGXIN / CHINADAILY.COM.CN)

GENEVA - The rapid rise in coronavirus raised fears of a pandemic on Friday, with five countries reporting their first cases, the World Health Organization warning it could spread worldwide.

World share markets crashed again, winding up their worst week since the 2008 global financial crisis and bringing the global wipeout to US$5 trillion.

The scenario of the coronavirus reaching multiple countries, if not all countries around the world, is something we have been looking at and warning against since quite a while 

Christian Lindmeier, WHO spokesman

Hopes that the epidemic would be over in months, and that economic activity would quickly return to normal, have been shattered as the number of international cases has spiraled.

“The outbreak is getting bigger,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told reporters in Geneva.

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“The scenario of the coronavirus reaching multiple countries, if not all countries around the world, is something we have been looking at and warning against since quite a while.”

As the outbreak eases in China, it is surging elsewhere.

Five more countries have reported their first case, all with travel history connected to Italy. They were Nigeria, Estonia, Denmark, Netherlands and Lithuania, Lindmeier said.

Countries other than China now account for about three-quarters of new infections.

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Ratings agency Moody’s said a pandemic - usually taken to mean a disease spreading quickly in different places - would trigger global and US recessions in the first half of the year.