LONDON, May 5 (Portal) – The World Health Organization ended the global emergency status for COVID-19 on Friday, more than three years after its original declaration, and said countries should now deal with the virus, which along with others kills more than 6.9 million Infectious diseases killed people.
The global health agency’s Emergency Committee met on Thursday and recommended that the UN agency declare the end of the coronavirus crisis a “public health emergency of international concern” — the highest alert level — in effect since January 30, 2020.
“I therefore have high hopes of declaring COVID-19 over as a global health emergency,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, adding that the end of the emergency does not mean that COVID as a global health threat is over.
During a lengthy conference call to brief the press on the decision, some WHO members got emotional as they urged countries to reflect on lessons learned during the pandemic.
“We cannot forget these pyres. We cannot forget the graves that were dug. None of us up here will forget them,” said WHO’s technical lead for COVID-19, Maria Van Kerkhove.
The COVID death toll has slowed from a peak of more than 100,000 people a week in January 2021 to just over 3,500 in the week ending April 24, 2023, according to WHO data, reflecting widespread vaccination, the availability of better treatments and the Population reflects immunity to previous infections.
The end of the emergency could mean international cooperation or funding efforts also end, or a shift in focus, although many have already adjusted as the pandemic eased in different regions.
“The fight is not over yet. We still have weaknesses and those weaknesses that we still have in our system will be exposed by this virus or any other virus. And it needs to be fixed,” said WHO emergency director Michael Ryan.
The WHO does not declare the beginning or end of pandemics, although it began using the term for COVID in March 2020.
The ultrastructural morphology of the 2019 novel coronavirus is seen in an illustration released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, the United States, January 29, 2020. Alissa Eckert, MS; Dan Higgins, MAM/CDC/Handout via Portal.
“In most cases, pandemics really do end when the next pandemic begins,” Ryan said.
Last year US President Joe Biden said the pandemic was over. Like a number of other countries, the world’s largest economy has started phasing out its national state of emergency for COVID, which officially ends May 11, meaning it will stop paying for vaccines and testing for many people, and shift responsibility onto the commercial ones market will shift.
The European Union also said in April last year that the emergency phase of the pandemic was over and that other regions had taken similar steps.
“SIGNIFICANT PUBLIC HEALTH PROBLEM”
The WHO statement comes just four months after China ended its ongoing tight COVID restrictions and was hit by a large spike in infections.
The decision also suggests that WHO advisers believe a new, more dangerous variant of coronavirus is unlikely to emerge in the coming months, although the virus remains unpredictable.
“I will not hesitate to convene another emergency committee should COVID-19 threaten our world again,” said WHO chief Tedros.
Testing has dropped dramatically in many parts of the world and people have largely stopped wearing masks. Mask wearing has resumed in some countries during COVID outbreaks. The WHO released a plan this week advising countries on how to live with COVID in the long term.
COVID will continue to challenge healthcare systems worldwide in the long term, including long COVID, infectious disease experts say. “No one should take[that]to mean that COVID-19 is no longer a problem,” said Mark Woolhouse, an epidemiologist at the University of Edinburgh.
“It is still a significant public health concern and likely will remain so for the foreseeable future.”
Reporting by Jennifer Rigby in London and Bhanvi Satija in Bengaluru; Adaptation by Josephine Mason
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Jennifer Rigby
Bhanvi Satija