Geneva: The World Health Organization decided on Monday to maintain a state of emergency over the COVID-19 pandemic, three years after declaring the disease a public health emergency of global proportions.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus followed the recommendations of the Emergency Committee on COVID-19, an expert committee that met Friday for the 14th time, according to a statement.
On January 30, 2020, the committee declared that Covid-19 constitutes a “public health emergency on an international scale,” while at that time, less than a hundred cases were recorded outside China, without any deaths.
Tedros had previously confirmed that raising the maximum emergency level was "premature".
"Although I do not want to preempt the opinion of the emergency committee, I remain very concerned about the situation in several countries and the increasing number of deaths," he said on Tuesday during a regular press conference in Geneva.
"My message is clear: do not underestimate this virus, it has surprised us and will continue to surprise us and will continue to kill us, unless we do more to provide health facilities to those in need and to combat disinformation globally," he added. The Director-General of the UN organization has the power to choose whether or not to follow the recommendation of the Emergency Committee.
The virus caused the death of 6,804,491 people and infected more than 752 million people as of January 27, according to the organization, but the UN agency and experts agree that the numbers are actually much higher.
Tags:
affect health
body health
digestive health
emotional health
fatal health risk
global health
good health
hand health
harm health
health
health benefits
health care
health collapse