The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, postulated that it is possible to "end the acute phase of the coronavirus pandemic this year" and "end COVID-19 as a global health emergency." ”.
He said this on January 24 during the opening meeting of the organization’s executive committee, which meets every week in Geneva, Switzerland. However, he recalled that the disease currently causes one death every 12 seconds worldwide.
Beyond predicting the possible end of the acute phase of the pandemic, the head of the WHO warned that it is "dangerous to assume that Ómicron will be the last variant", because the conditions are "ideal" in the world for other variants to emerge. , including other more transmissible and virulent ones, in statements reproduced by international press agencies.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus insisted that to end the acute phase of the pandemic, countries must not sit idly and are obliged to fight inequality in vaccination, monitor the virus and its variants and apply adapted restrictions.
For weeks, the head of the WHO has been insisting on member states to accelerate the distribution of vaccines in poor countries, with the goal of vaccinating 70% of the population of all countries in the world by mid-2022. The fact is that half of the 194 countries that make up the organization did not achieve the goal of reaching 40% of the immunized population by the end of 2021.
Meanwhile, the coronavirus continues to claim lives: last week, one person died every 12 seconds in the world due to the disease and 100 new cases were reported every three seconds, according to the director of the WHO.
“So far, the explosion of cases has not been followed by an increase in deaths, although deaths have increased in all regions, especially in Africa, the region with the least access to vaccines,” noted Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
"It is true that we will live with COVID but learning to live with the disease should not mean that we have to leave it free. It should not mean that we have to accept that 50,000 people die every week due to a disease that we can prevent and cure," hill.
