The World Health Organization (WHO) updated its guidance on Friday to recommend that governments ask everyone to wear fabric face masks in public areas where there is a risk of transmission of COVID-19 to help reduce the spread of the pandemic disease.
In its new guidance, prompted by evidence from studies conducted in recent weeks, the WHO stressed that face masks were only one of a range of tools that can reduce the risk of viral transmission, and should not give a false sense of protection.
"Masks on their own will not protect you from COVID-19," the WHO's director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters at a briefing.
WHO advises everyone to wear fabric face masks in public areas where there is a risk of transmission of COVID-19. Pixabay
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The WHO's technical lead expert on COVID-19, Maria Van Kerkhove, said in a Reuters interview: "We are advising governments to encourage that the general public wear a mask. And we specify a fabric mask – that is, a non-medical mask.
"We have new research findings," she added. "We have evidence now that if this is done properly it can provide a barrier … for potentially infectious droplets." (VOA)