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Covid no longer a global health emergency: World Health Organization

May 5, 2023
Bharat Times

Even though it no longer represents an emergency, COVID-19 is here to stay, WHO said

London:

The World Health Organization said on Friday that COVID-19 no longer represents a global health emergency, a major step towards the end of the pandemic that has killed more than 6.9 million people, disrupted the global economy and devastated communities.

The WHO’s emergency committee met on Thursday and recommended that the UN agency declare an end to the Public Health Emergency of International Concern, which has been in force for more than three years.

“It is therefore with great anticipation that I declare COVID-19 a global health emergency,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The WHO’s Emergency Committee first announced that COVID represented its highest level of alert three years ago on 30 January 2020. The position helps focus international attention on the health threat, as well as strengthen cooperation on vaccines and treatments.

Its lifting is a sign of progress made by the world in these areas, but COVID-19 is here to stay, the WHO has said, even if it no longer represents an emergency.

“Covid has changed the world, and it has changed us. And so it should be. If we go back to how things were before COVID-19, we will fail to learn our lessons, and prepare for our future.” Will fail generations.” Ghebreyesus said.

The death rate is set to decline from a peak of more than 100,000 people per week in January 2021 to just over 3,500 a week by April 24, 2023, according to data from the World Health Organisation.

The WHO does not declare the beginning or end of a pandemic, although it began using the term for COVID in March 2020.

Last year, US President Joe Biden said the pandemic was over. Like many other countries, the world’s largest economy has begun ending its domestic state of emergency for COVID, meaning it will stop paying for vaccines, among other benefits.

Other regions have also taken similar steps. The European Union said in April last year that the emergency phase of the pandemic was over, and WHO’s Africa chief Matshidiso Moeti said in December that it was time to move to routine management of Covid across the continent.

Ending the emergency may also mean an end to international cooperation or funding efforts, or a change in focus, although many have already adapted as the pandemic subsides in various regions.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)