Sept 14 (Reuters) – The world has never been better placed to end the COVID-19 pandemic, the head of the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, his most optimistic outlook on the long-running health crisis that has killed more. six million people. “We are not there yet. But the end is in sight,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters at a mock news conference. This was the most optimistic assessment by the UN agency since it declared an international emergency in January 2020 and began describing COVID-19 as a pandemic three months later. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up The virus, which emerged in China in late 2019, has killed nearly 6.5 million people and infected 606 million, upsetting global economies and overwhelming healthcare systems. The release of vaccines and treatments has helped limit deaths and hospitalizations, and the Omicron variant that emerged late last year causes less severe disease. Deaths from COVID-19 last week were the lowest since March 2020, the UN agency said. But on Wednesday, he again urged nations to remain vigilant and likened the pandemic to a marathon race. “Now is the time to run harder and make sure we push the limits and reap the rewards of all our hard work.” Countries need to carefully review their policies and strengthen them for COVID-19 and future viruses, Tedros said. He also urged nations to vaccinate 100 percent of high-risk groups and continue testing for the virus. The WHO said countries must maintain adequate supplies of medical equipment and health workers. “We expect there to be future waves of infections, possibly at different points in time around the world caused by different subvariants of Omicron or even different variants of concern,” said WHO senior epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove. With more than 1 million deaths this year alone, the pandemic remains a global emergency in most countries. “The summer wave of COVID-19, driven by Omicron BA.4 and BA.5, showed that the pandemic is far from over as the virus continues to circulate in Europe and beyond,” said a European Commission spokesperson . The next meeting of WHO experts to decide whether the pandemic remains a public health emergency of international concern is expected in October, a WHO spokesman said.
WORLDWIDE EMERGENCY
“It’s probably fair to say that most of the world is moving beyond the emergency phase of dealing with the pandemic,” said Dr Michael Head, senior research fellow in global health at the University of Southampton. Governments are now looking at how best to manage COVID as part of their day-to-day health care and surveillance, he said. Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States have approved vaccines targeting the Omicron variant as well as the original virus as countries prepare to begin winter booster campaigns. In the United States, COVID-19 was initially declared a public health emergency in January 2020, and since then this status has been renewed quarterly. The US Department of Health is set to renew it again in mid-October, in what policy experts expect will be the last time before it expires in January 2023. US health officials have said the pandemic is not over, but that the new bivalent vaccines mark a major shift in the fight against the virus. They predict that a single annual vaccine similar to the flu shot should provide a high degree of protection and return the country closer to normalcy. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up Reporting by Manas Mishra, Khushi Mandowara in Bengaluru, Ahmed Aboulenein in Washington and Jennifer Rigby in London. Editing by Shounak Dasgupta, William Maclean, Josephine Mason, Elaine Hardcastle Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
