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Monday, March 3, 2025

WHO chief: The COVID pandemic is ‘most certainly not over’
 

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1015 days ago
20220523
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, left, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), talks with a member of staff during the first day of the 75th World Health Assembly at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Sunday, May 22, 2022. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP)

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, left, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), talks with a member of staff during the first day of the 75th World Health Assembly at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Sunday, May 22, 2022. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP)

SOURCE: As­so­ci­at­ed Press

 

BERLIN (AP) — The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic is “most cer­tain­ly not over,” the head of the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion warned Sun­day, de­spite a de­cline in re­port­ed cas­es since the peak of the omi­cron wave. He told gov­ern­ments that “we low­er our guard at our per­il.”

The U.N. health agency’s di­rec­tor-gen­er­al, Tedros Ad­hanom Ghe­breye­sus, told of­fi­cials gath­ered in Gene­va for open­ing of the WHO’s an­nu­al meet­ing that “de­clin­ing test­ing and se­quenc­ing means we are blind­ing our­selves to the evo­lu­tion of the virus.” He al­so not­ed that al­most 1 bil­lion peo­ple in low­er-in­come coun­tries still haven’t been vac­ci­nat­ed.

In a week­ly re­port Thurs­day on the glob­al sit­u­a­tion, WHO said the num­ber of new COVID-19 cas­es ap­pears to have sta­bi­lized af­ter weeks of de­cline since late March, while the over­all num­ber of week­ly deaths dropped.

While there has been progress, with 60% of the world’s pop­u­la­tion vac­ci­nat­ed, “it’s not over any­where un­til it’s over every­where,” Tedros said.

“Re­port­ed cas­es are in­creas­ing in al­most 70 coun­tries in all re­gions, and this in a world in which test­ing rates have plum­met­ed,” he added.

Re­port­ed deaths are ris­ing in Africa, the con­ti­nent with the low­est vac­ci­na­tion cov­er­age, he said, and on­ly 57 coun­tries — al­most all of them wealthy — have vac­ci­nat­ed 70% of their peo­ple.

While the world’s vac­cine sup­ply has im­proved, there is “in­suf­fi­cient po­lit­i­cal com­mit­ment to roll out vac­cines” in some coun­tries, gaps in “op­er­a­tional or fi­nan­cial ca­pac­i­ty” in oth­ers, he said.

“In all, we see vac­cine hes­i­tan­cy dri­ven by mis­in­for­ma­tion and dis­in­for­ma­tion,” Tedros said. “The pan­dem­ic will not mag­i­cal­ly dis­ap­pear, but we can end it.”

Tedros is ex­pect­ed to be ap­point­ed for a sec­ond five-year term this week at the World Health As­sem­bly, the an­nu­al meet­ing of the WHO’s mem­ber coun­tries.

 

COVID-19WHOCOVID-19 cases


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