Covid-19. 90% of the world’s population has some form of immunity, says WHO director

Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday that at least 90% of the world’s population has some immunity to Covid-19, warning of a lowering of vigilance.

This leaves the door open for the emergence of a new version that will likely spread and replace the currently dominant Omicron version, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus emphasized at a press conference. He then warned against the temptation to prematurely claim that the nascent phase of the epidemic is over. “We’re not there yet“, he announced.

“Gaps in surveillance, testing, sequencing and vaccination continue to create the perfect conditions for the emergence of a worrisome new variant that could cause significant mortality.“, he warned. The Omicron variant, which was declared a cause for concern by the WHO a year ago, has since spread worldwide, proving to be far more infectious than its predecessor, Delta.

According to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, there are currently more than 500 subtypes of Omicron in circulation, all of which are highly infectious and have mutations that allow them to more easily overcome immune barriers, although they cause less severe forms of the disease than previous variants. : . A total of 6.6 million deaths were reported to the WHO by countries, while there were approximately 640 million confirmed cases.

But the real toll is far more severe, according to the WHO. More than 8,500 deaths from Covid-19 were registered in the past week.which is unacceptable after three years of the pandemic, when we have so many tools to prevent infections and save livesTedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus emphasized.