WHO holds a press briefing on the coronavirus pandemic

[The stream is slated to start at 11 a.m. ET. Please refresh the page if you do not see a player above at that time.]

The World Health Organization is holding a briefing Wednesday on the coronavirus, which has infected more than 3.6 million people worldwide and killed at least 257,818, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

On Monday, WHO said it would speak with the U.S. government and Gilead Sciences on how antiviral drug remdesivir could be made more widely available to treat Covid-19 as new research shows its effectiveness in treating the virus.

The WHO welcomes the recent data from a U.S. government-run clinical trial showing the drug appeared to be effective in reducing recovery times for Covid-19 patients, Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies program, said.

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday granted emergency use authorization for Gilead’s drug to treat Covid-19 after the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases released results from its clinical trial showing patients who took remdesivir usually recovered after 11 days, four days faster than those who didn’t take the drug.

Read CNBC’s live updates to see the latest news on the Covid -19 outbreak.