JUST IN: COVID-19 PANDEMIC IS NO LONGER A GLOBAL HEALTH EMERGENCY – WHO
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By Aishat Momoh. O.
The World Health Organization has declared on Friday, that COVID-19 pandemic is no longer a global health emergency.
TheWHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, while speaking about the pandemic during the organization’s 15th conference on COVID-19 on Thursday. stated that the public health emergency of international concern PHEIC, proclamation should stop.
“For more than a year the pandemic has been on a downward trend,” Tedros said at a news conference Friday.
“This trend has allowed most countries to return to life as we knew it before Covid-19,” Tedros said. “Yesterday, the emergency committee met for the 15th time and recommended to me that I declare an end to the public health emergency of international concern. I have accepted that advice.”
A PHEIC establishes an agreement between nations to follow the WHO’s guidelines for handling the disaster. Each nation independently declares a public health emergency, which has legal force. They are used by nations to mobilize resources and suspend regulations in order to diffuse crises.
On May 11, the COVID-19 public health emergency in the US will come to an end.
According to WHO officials, COVID-19 is still a hazard to world health but is now spreading more slowly and is developing.
“There’s still a public health threat out there, and we all see that every day in terms of the evolution of this virus, in terms of its global presence, its continued evolution and continued vulnerabilities in our communities, both societal vulnerabilities, age vulnerabilities, protection vulnerabilities, and many other things,” said Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme.
“So, we fully expect that this virus will continue to transmit, but this is the history of pandemics,” Ryan said. “In most cases, pandemics truly end when the next pandemic begins. I know that’s a terrible thought but that is the history of pandemics.”
Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s Covid-19 technical lead and head of its program on emerging disease, said that the emergency phase of the Covid-19 crisis is over but the disease is “here to stay” and the coronavirus that causes the disease is not going away any time soon.
“While we’re not in the crisis mode, we can’t let our guard down,” Van Kerkhove said. “Epidemiologically, this virus will continue to cause waves. What we are hopeful of is that we have the tools in place to ensure that the future waves do not result in more severe disease, don’t result in waves of death and we can do that with the tools we have at hand. We just need to make sure that we are tracking the virus because it will continue to evolve.”
According to estimates from the WHO, there have been more than 765 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the epidemic began. Over 7 million people have passed away. Although the Americas have recorded the most deaths, Europe has overall had the most verified cases. About 1 in 6 deaths worldwide have occurred in the US.
Cases peaked in December 2022 as Omicron ravaged the world, particularly severely hitting the Western Pacific. However, countless vaccination doses have been given worldwide, and the number of deaths has remained well below earlier peaks.
The number of COVID-19 cases and deaths is currently at a three-year low. Yet, more than 3,500 individuals passed away in the final week of April, and billions of people are still not immunized.
Tedros said that, if needed, he would not hesitate to convene another emergency committee meeting and declare a global health emergency again if there is a significant rise in Covid-19 cases or deaths in the future.
“Covid-19 has left and continues to leave deep scars on our world. Those scars must serve as a permanent reminder of the potential for new viruses to emerge with devastating consequences,” Tedros said.
“One of the greatest tragedies of Covid-19 is that it didn’t have to be this way. We have the tools and technologies to prepare for pandemics better, detect them earlier, respond to them faster, and communicate their impact. But globally, a lack of coordination, a lack of equity, and lack of solidarity meant that those tools were not used as effectively as they could have been,” Tedros said. “We must promise ourselves and our children and grandchildren that we will never make those mistakes again.”
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