(MENAFN- Trend News Agency) The chief of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on
Wednesday he hopes that COVID-19 will no longer be a global health
emergency sometime next year, trend reports citing xinhua .
Addressing a press briefing in Geneva, WHO Director-General
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the WHO COVID-19 Emergency
Committee will discuss next month the criteria for declaring an end
to the COVID-19 emergency.
'We're hopeful that at some point next year, we will be able to
say that COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency,' he
said.
He added, however, that the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the culprit behind
the COVID-19 pandemic, will not go away.
'It's here to stay, and all countries will need to learn to
manage it alongside other respiratory illnesses including influenza
and RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus), both of which are now
circulating intensely in many countries,' he said.
The WHO chief said one of the most important lessons from the
pandemic is that all countries need to strengthen their public
health systems to prepare for, prevent, detect and respond rapidly
to outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics.
Another key lesson is the need for much stronger cooperation in
collaboration, rather than competition and confusion that marked
the global response to COVID-19.
Meanwhile, Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead of the WHO's
Health Emergencies Program, warned waves of infection and
re-infection would continue around the world, as the number of
weekly new deaths reported by countries still hovers between 8,000
to 10,000.
Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies
Program, warned that the world still does not know how the
SARS-CoV-2 virus will evolve in the future, and such uncertainties
add to risks.
Before the WHO chief ends the COVID-19 emergency, a balance
needs to be stricken between the virus -- including its impact and
unpredictability -- and 'whether or not we have dealt with the
vulnerabilities and the resilience issues in our health systems,'
Ryan said.
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