The World Health Organisation has declared that coronavirus is now a pandemic and stated that the organisation is alarmed about the rising amount of infections as well as being shocked at slow government responses.

"We have called every day for countries to take urgent and aggressive action. We have rung the alarm bell loud and clear," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva overnight, according to 9News.

"All countries can still change the course of this pandemic. If countries detect, test, treat, isolate, trace and mobilise their people in the response.

"We are deeply concerned by the alarming levels of spread and severity and by the alarming levels of inaction."

However, WHO has stressed that it’s not too late for countries such as Iran and Italy to act and become the new frontlines for battle.

"They're suffering but I guarantee you other countries will be in that situation soon," WHO emergencies chief Mike Ryan said.

Italy has put the country on lockdown and Iran has reported a jump in deaths from coronavirus, going from 62 to 354.

More than 121,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 4,300 people have died.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says that she believed up to 70 per cent of Germans are likely to be infected with the virus.

"When the virus is out there, the population has no immunity and no therapy exists, then 60 to 70 per cent of the population will be infected," she told a news conference in Berlin.

"The process has to be focused on not overburdening the health system by slowing the virus's spread…It's about winning time."