GENEVA, Switzerland — The pandemic is far from over, the WHO’s leader insisted Wednesday, two
years after he first used the term to wake the world up to the emerging threat
of COVID-19.
اضافة اعلان
The World Health
Organization’s (WHO) Director-General
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus first
described COVID-19 as a pandemic on March 11, 2020.
Two years on, he
lamented how the virus was still evolving and surging in some parts of the
world.
The WHO declared a
public health emergency of international concern — the highest level of alarm
in the UN health agency’s regulations — on January 30, 2020, when, outside of
China, fewer than 100 cases and no deaths had been reported.
But it was only the
use of the word pandemic six weeks on that seemed to shake many countries into
action.
“Two years later,
more than six million people have died,” Tedros told a press conference, while
nearly 444 million cases have been registered.
“Although reported
cases and deaths are declining globally, and several countries have lifted
restrictions, the pandemic is far from over — and it will not be over anywhere
until it’s over everywhere.”
He noted the
46-percent rise in new cases last week in the WHO’s Western Pacific region,
where 3.9 million infections were recorded.
“The virus
continues to evolve, and we continue to face major obstacles in distributing
vaccines, tests and treatments everywhere they are needed,” Tedros said.
He also sounded a
warning on the recent plunge in testing rates, saying it left the planet blind
to what
COVID-19 was up to.
“WHO is concerned
that several countries are drastically reducing testing,” Tedros said.
“This inhibits our
ability to see where the virus is, how it’s spreading and how it’s evolving.”
Call for vigilance
The number of fresh cases fell 5 percent worldwide last week compared to
the week before, while the number of deaths dropped eight percent.
However,
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s COVID-19 technical lead, warned that the case rate was
certainly an underestimate due the dramatic drop-off in testing.
“The virus is still
spreading at far too intensive a level, three years into this pandemic,” she
said.
“Even though we
are seeing declining trends ... there were still more than 10 million reported
cases reported at a global level last week.
“We have to remain
vigilant.”
In its weekly
update on the spread of the virus, the WHO said earlier that the Omicron
variant had “global dominance” over other mutations of the virus.
The WHO said
Omicron accounted for 99.7 percent of samples collected in the last 30 days
that have been sequenced and uploaded to the GISAID global science initiative.
The WHO says unequal
access to COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatments remains rampant and is
prolonging the pandemic.
Regarding vaccines,
the WHO’s latest figures show 23 countries are yet to fully immunize 10 percent
of their populations, while 73 countries are yet to achieve the 40 percent
coverage target set for the start of 2022.
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