As the daily increase in novel coronavirus cases outside China has greatly surpassed that inside China, Bruce Aylward, head of the WHO-China Joint Mission on COVID-19, emphasized that speed is the "single biggest message" that the rest of the world should take away from China.

"You have to find the cases quickly, and you have to get them isolated, and their close contacts quarantined, to be able to break this disease," he told China Daily. "That was the first big message－speed, speed, speed."

At present, there are more than 100,000 confirmed cases globally, of which more than 20,000 are outside China. According to the World Health Organization, 2,736 new cases were reported in 47 countries and territories as of Friday, compared with 99 in China.

Aylward described China as "the first line of defense for international spread of this virus". He highly praised China's fundamental control measures to prevent its further spread, especially the lockdown in Wuhan, Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak.

He also suggested that although the rest of the world has not been ready for the outbreak during the "window" that China created for them, "it's never too late to get this under control".

South Korea, Iran and Italy are among the countries hardest hit outside China.

"I've been sharing with Iran and with Italy over the last few days (that)... you can slow down the virus. And every step you take to try and reduce the number of cases, the intensity of transmission, that's going to translate into less cases, and people and lives saved," he said.

Italy is expected to take new containment measures, including a possible ban on people entering or leaving the region of Lombardy and 11 other provinces for nonurgent reasons, according to media reports.

In Iran, "tremendous progress" has been made at hospitals in every province, with facilities made available for treatment of COVID-19 patients, the WHO's representative in Iran, Christoph Hamelmann, said at a news conference in Teheran on Saturday.

Meanwhile, China announced on Saturday the contribution of $20 million to the WHO for combating the COVID-19 epidemic and helping developing countries improve their response capacities and strengthen public health systems.

Chen Xu, China's permanent representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva, said the epidemic prevention and control in China is achieving steady progress and positive development, and this has protected the lives and health of its people as well as made a great contribution to global public health security.

China is willing to participate in international cooperation in COVID-19 prevention and control with concrete actions, to support the WHO's professional and coordination role, and to help developing countries with vulnerable public health systems effectively respond to the epidemic, Chen said.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, expressed his gratitude and appreciation to the Chinese government for its generosity in extending a helping hand to other developing countries at the crucial moment of the global epidemic response, while overcoming its own difficulties.

The WHO will continue to strengthen coordination and cooperation with China to promote continuous substantial progress in international epidemic prevention and control efforts, Tedros said.