World can end COVID emergency this year: WHO chief

The head of the World Health Organization said on Monday that the virus killed someone every 12 seconds last week, but the planet can end the COVID-19 emergency this year.

“We can end COVID-19 as a global health emergency and we can do it this year,” Tedros Adhanom Gebreyes told the United Nations Health Agency. Board of directors..

To do so, he warned that countries need to work harder to ensure equitable access to vaccines and treatments, track viruses and their new variants, and maintain restrictions.

For months, WHO called on countries to work harder to accelerate the distribution of vaccines in poor countries and called on all countries to vaccinate at least 70 percent of their population by the middle of this year. ..

According to Tedros, half of WHO’s 194 member countries failed to meet their previous goal of vaccination of 40% of the population by the end of 2021, and 85% of Africans still have one vaccination. It is said that he did not receive it.

“Unless we fill this gap, we can’t end the emergency phase of the pandemic,” he said.

“On average last week, 100 cases were reported every 3 seconds, and someone died of COVID-19 every 12 seconds,” he added.

COVID-19 has killed more than 5.5 million people since its first appearance in late 2019, and the number of cases has been pushed to record levels by the new Omicron. Mutant..

Since the strain was first detected in southern Africa nine weeks ago, Tedros said more than 80 million cases were reported to WHO in 2020 as a whole.

Omicron seems to have few causes Severe illness More than in previous variants, Tedros confirmed that “the explosion of the incident did not coincide with the surge in deaths.”

The WHO chief said the world needs to learn to live with COVID.

“You will need to learn to manage it through a sustained and integrated strategy for acute respiratory disease,” he said, “Omicron is the last variant, or this is the final game.” It is dangerous to make assumptions. “

“On the contrary, it is an ideal condition for more variants to emerge globally,” he said.

“The potential for more contagious and more deadly variants is very real.”

© 2022 AFP