By Linda Naa Deide Aryeetey
Accra, May 5, GNA – The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared COVID-19 over as a global health emergency.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus,Director General of the WHO, said the declaration was a recommendation by the WHO’s Emergency Committee at its 15 meeting held on May 4,2023.
In his opening remark at a media brefing on Friday, the Director General said that the declaration however did not mean COVID-19 was over as a global health threat.
“This virus is here to stay. It is still killing, and it’s still changing. The risk remains of new variants emerging that cause new surges in cases and deaths,” he said.
Dr. Ghebreyesus said the worst thing any country could do now was to use the news as a reason to let down its guard, to dismantle the systems it has built, or to send the message to its people that COVID-19 is nothing to worry about.
” What this news means is that it is time for countries to transition from emergency mode to managing COVID-19 alongside other infectious diseases,”he said.
Dr Ghebreyesus said declaring an end to the global pandemic is not a snap decision, but has been considered carefully for some time, planned for, and made on the basis of a careful analysis of the data. Saying ;
” On the 30th January 2020, on the advice of an Emergency Committee convened under the International Health Regulations, I declared a public health emergency of international concern over the global outbreak of COVID-19 – the highest level of alarm under international law”.
The Director General said three years since then, COVID-19 had turned the world upside down.
“Almost 7 million deaths have been reported to WHO, but we know the toll is several times higher – at least 20 million,” he said.
He said health systems had been severely disrupted, with millions of people missing out on essential health services, including lifesaving vaccinations for children.
Dr Ghebreyesus said COVID-19 had been so much more than a health crisis it had caused severe economic upheaval, erasing trillions from GDP, disrupting travel and trade, shuttering businesses, and plunging millions into poverty.
It has caused severe social upheaval, with borders closed, movement restricted, schools shut and millions of people experiencing loneliness, isolation, anxiety and depression.
He said COVID-19 had exposed and exacerbated political fault lines, within and between nations. It has eroded trust between people, governments and institutions, fuelled by a torrent of mis- and disinformation.
The pandemic has laid bare the searing inequalities of the world, with the poorest and most vulnerable communities the hardest hit, and the last to receive access to vaccines and other tools.
Dr Ghebreyesus said COVID-19 had left – and continues to leave – deep scars on the world and those scars must serve as a permanent reminder of the potential for new viruses to emerge, with devastating consequences.
GNA.