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.
The World Health Organisation’s 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.
He noted the 46-per cent 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.
The number of fresh cases fell 5 per cent worldwide last week compared to the week before, while the number of deaths dropped eight percent.
The WHO said Omicron accounted for 99.7 per cent 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.
On jabs, the WHO’s latest figures show 23 countries are yet to fully immunise 10 per cent of their populations, while 73 countries are yet to achieve the 40 per cent coverage target set for the start of 2022.
– THE MALAY MAIL