The World Health Organization's technical lead against Covid-19, María Van Kerkhove, warned during a press conference organized due to the increase in coronavirus cases that the world “remains in a pandemic” as the virus continues to develop respiratory diseases worldwide.
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According to the WHO, there was a 42 percent increase in hospital admissions and a 62 percent increase in intensive care unit admissions due to Covid this week.
In this context, the expert referred to the increase in the number of infected people during the recent holiday season.
“#COVID continues to be a global health threat and poses far too great a burden if we can prevent it.
What will we see in five, ten years in terms of heart impairment, lung impairment and neurological impairment? “We do not know it.”
– @mvankerkhove from @quien pic.twitter.com/yB73YXekhb— United Nations Geneva (@UNGeneva)
January 12, 2024
According to Van Kerkhove, “We are not in a crisis, we do not have the scale of impact as the peak of the pandemic in 2021, 2022 or even 2023, but Covid is still a threat to global health and is causing too many problems. “we could avoid”.
In addition, he pointed out that although the number of deaths has fallen dramatically from the peak reached a few years ago, there are still 10,000 deaths per month, figures that must be higher since data is only received from 50 countries for a A total of more than 200 areas.
In this sense, Van Kerkhove recalled that vulnerable groups and health workers must receive booster vaccinations and, in certain cases, wear a mask, as hundreds of thousands of people continue to be hospitalized for this reason.
“We fear that in five, 10, 20 years we could see effects in the form of heart, lung or neurological problems,” said the expert. At the end of last week, the WHO warned of a resurgence in the number of cases in several countries and the spread of new variants of the virus.