Covid-19 has killed more than 5.5 million people since it first emerged. (file)
Geneva:
The head of the World Health Organization said on Monday that the planet could end the Covid-19 emergency this year, although last week the virus killed someone every 12 seconds.
“We can end COVID-19 as a global health emergency and we can do it this year,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the UN health agency’s executive board.
To do so, countries need to work harder to ensure equitable access to vaccines and treatments, track the virus and its emerging forms, and enforce restrictions, he warned.
The WHO has for months demanded that countries do more to accelerate the delivery of vaccines to poor countries, calling on all countries to vaccinate at least 70 percent of their population by the middle of this year.
Tedros said half of the WHO’s 194 member states missed their previous target of vaccinating 40 percent of people by the end of 2021, and that 85 percent of people in Africa had not yet received a single jab.
“We simply cannot end the emergency phase of the pandemic unless we bridge this gap,” he said.
“Last week on an average 100 cases were reported every three seconds and every 12 seconds someone lost their life to Kovid-19,” he said.
Covid-19 has killed more than 5.5 million people since it first emerged in late 2019 and the new Omicron version took the case count to a record high.
Since the strain was first detected in southern Africa nine weeks ago, Tedros said 80 million cases had been reported to the WHO – more than the whole of 2020.
Omicron causes less severe disease than previous variants and Tedros confirmed that “the explosion in cases does not match the increase in deaths”.
The WHO chief said that the world has to learn to live with Kovid.
“We have to learn to manage it through a consistent and integrated strategy for acute respiratory diseases,” he said, stressing that “it was dangerous to assume that Omicron would be the final version, or that it was the final game.” “
“On the contrary,” he said, “conditions globally are ideal for more forms to emerge.”
“The prospect of a more permeable, more lethal version remains very real.”
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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