A se­nior of­fi­cial at the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) has con­firmed that a spe­cial com­mit­tee will meet on Fri­day 27 Jan­u­ary 2023, to de­ter­mine whether the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic still rep­re­sents a glob­al emer­gency.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­port from Reuters, con­fir­ma­tion of the up­com­ing meet­ing came from WHO spokesper­son Car­la Drys­dale, dur­ing press brief­ing in Gene­va, ear­li­er on Tues­day.

This meet­ing of the Emer­gency Com­mit­tee that ad­vis­es the WHO Di­rec­tor Gen­er­al, Tedros Ad­hanom Ghe­breye­sus, comes three years af­ter COVID-19 was first de­clared a glob­al emer­gency.

The Reuters re­port states that the WHO Di­rec­tor-Gen­er­al will make “the ul­ti­mate call on whether an out­break rep­re­sents a so-called Pub­lic Health Emer­gency of In­ter­na­tion­al Con­cern”—the WHO's high­est lev­el of alert.

“Sev­er­al lead­ing sci­en­tists and WHO ad­vis­ers say it may be too ear­ly to de­clare the end of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic emer­gency phase be­cause of high lev­els of in­fec­tions in Chi­na which dis­man­tled its ze­ro-COVID pol­i­cy last month,” the Reuters re­port not­ed.

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Source: REUTERS. Orig­i­nal Re­port­ing by Em­ma Farge. Orig­i­nal Edit­ing by Made­line Cham­bers.