WHO: COVID-19 remains an international health emergency

The World Health Organization (WHO) today considers that COVID-19 remains as one emergency medical care on an international scale, as it continues to be a “dangerous infectious disease” that can cause significant damage to human health and the health systems of countries.

The statement, issued by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhan Ghebreyesus on the recommendation of his organization’s Emergency Committee, also acknowledges that the pandemic has entered a “transitional” phase that could turn into an alert level. will end in the coming months.

The GKChP experts indicated in their recommendation to Tedros that now it is necessary to think about how to move from an emergency phase to a normal phase in which a person lives with virus- in a safe way.

Although officially COVID-19 has not lost its status as a major threat to international public health as of January 31, 2020 (date of announcement WHO), the world has left behind most of the restrictive measures associated with the fight against the pandemic.

The latest case is that of China, which in December last year lifted measures that had been strictly enforced for three years, including restrictions and near-total border closures. After a sharp spike in deaths and hospitalizations, the pandemic in that country also appears to be steadily waning.

alternative mechanisms

However WHO He argues that “long-term public health action” is needed to end the emergency, on the understanding that it is unlikely that the virus can be eliminated from the human and animal “reservoirs” he has discovered.

The idea of ​​the GKChP experts is to offer “alternative mechanisms” to an international state of emergency (or pandemicas it is popularly called) to keep attention on COVID-19 both nationally and globally.

General director WHO recently recalled that the global response to the pandemic cannot be considered successful as many countries still lack vaccines and treatments to care for their patients, and that many health networks in low-income countries continue to suffer from this situation.

An example of this is Nigeria, a country that reported today that it has just reached 30 percent coverage vaccinationwhich can hardly be called a success, although in fact it is, given that a year ago this figure barely reached 3%.

EFE