Finance
The Covid-19 pandemic, which has so far claimed more than seven million lives worldwide, may end up as a ‘public health emergency of international concern’ this year and pose a seasonal flu threat, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
“I’m confident that we will be able to say this year that Covid-19 has ended as a public health emergency of international concern,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference.
“And I think we’re coming to that point where we can look at Covid-19 in the same way we look at seasonal influenza,” he added.
Covid, according to the WHO chief, will continue to be a threat to human health. It will turn into a “virus that will continue to kill, but a virus that is not disrupting our society or disrupting our hospital system”.
He also stated that while the virus may become more transmissible, it will not cause severe disease.
Covid-19 was marked as pandemic on March 11, 2020.
“We declared a global health emergency to spur countries to take decisive action, but not all countries did,” he said on Friday.
“Three years later, there are almost seven million reported deaths from Covid-19, although we know that the actual number of deaths is much higher.”
He noted that for the first time in four weeks, the weekly number of reported deaths has been lower than when the virus was declared a pandemic.
Despite this, over 5,000 deaths are reported each week. It is “too many for a disease that can be prevented and treated,” according to the WHO director-general.chief.
Source:IANS
