The World Health Organization has acknowledged that China is in the midst of a medical emergency, but said it was too early to declare the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). It has described the global risk from the virus as High. What does it take for governments and global agencies to coordinate outbreak response policies? Melisa Idris and Ibrahim Sani speak to Dr Khor Swee Kheng, Senior Fellow of Health Systems and Policies at the University of Malaya, who is currently with the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford in the UK.