World Health Organization (WHO) director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Friday appealed for cooperation and collaboration among countries in the face of common threats from the Covid-19 pandemic, reported India Today.
During a live session at the Munich Security Conference 2022, currently underway in the German city, Dr. Tedros said the world must focus on ending the pandemic.
The WHO chief warned that the lower severity of the Omicron variant combined with high vaccine coverage is driving a dangerous narrative across several countries that the pandemic is over.
Dr. Tedros recalled that 70,000 people were dying each week from a preventable and treatable disease. He pointed out that 83 per cent of the population in African countries has not yet received a single Covid-19 vaccine dose and that the healthcare systems across the world continued to strain and crack under the caseload.
The WHO director-general said the conditions are ideal for more transmissible, more dangerous variants to emerge. However, he said that it is possible to end the Covid-19 pandemic as a global health emergency this year with the help of available tools and the know-how.
Dr. Tedros made an appeal to all countries to fill the urgent financing gap of $16 billion for the Access to Covid-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator to make vaccines, tests, treatments, and personal protective equipment available globally.
When asked about when the COVID-19 pandemic will end, the WHO chief said, “It will end when we choose to end it. Because, ultimately, it’s not a matter of chance, it’s a matter of choice.”
Meanwhile, on Friday, Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, urged nations to go slow on relaxing coronavirus-induced curbs. He pointed out some countries are lifting all public health and social measures despite the high number of coronavirus cases. He appealed to the countries to opt for a slow approach.
