The World Health Organization announced on Friday that COVID-19 is no longer a public health emergency, noting that countries around the world must now respond to the virus that has killed more than 6.9 millions of people in the same way as other infectious diseases.
The WHO Emergency Committee at the end of its May 4 meeting recommended that the end of the coronavirus crisis be declared a “public health emergency of international concern”, a status granted to it on January 30. 2020.
“It is therefore with great hope that I announce that COVID-19 has ceased to be a global health emergency,†said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, adding that this does not mean that COVID-19 is no longer a threat to global health. . .
During prolonged interactions with the press, some WHO members were emotional, urging countries around the world to reflect on lessons learned during the pandemic.
“We cannot forget those funeral pyres. We cannot forget the dug graves. None of us here will be able to forget them,†said Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO technical lead for COVID-19 response.
According to the WHO, about 20 million people have fallen victim to the disease over the past three years and several months. We are talking about a balance sheet of all deaths, linked in one way or another to the infection. According to official data collected by the American Johns Hopkins Institute, the coronavirus infection has caused the death of approximately 7 million people worldwide.
The death rate from COVID-19 has fallen from a peak of more than 100,000 people per week in January 2021 to just over 3,500 at the end of April, due to widespread vaccination, better treatments and the immunity against previous infections.
Last year, US President Joe Biden announced the end of the pandemic. Like several other countries, the United States – the world’s largest economy – has begun to reduce the emergency status of the disease nationally. This means that the government stops paying for vaccinations and testing for many populations and transfers the responsibility to the commercial market.
The European Union also declared in April last year that the emergency phase of the pandemic was over.
The WHO announcement comes just four months after China lifted its longstanding strict restrictions against COVID-19 and faced a sharp rise in cases.
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