Ajit Karn
Friday, the World Health Organization reported that the Covid-19 pandemic could reach a point this year where it poses a risk comparable to influenza.
The WHO is optimistic that it will be able to declare an end to the emergency in 2023, as it is increasingly optimistic about the end of the pandemic phase of the virus.
Last weekend marked three years since the UN health agency first referred to the situation as a pandemic; however, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus insists countries should have acted several weeks earlier.
Michael Ryan, WHO’s director of emergencies, told a press conference, “I think we’re approaching the point where we can look at Covid-19 in the same way as seasonal influenza.”
“A health hazard, a contagion that will continue to cause death. But a virus that does not disrupt our society or hospital systems, and I believe that will arrive this year, as Tedros predicted.”
The WHO director-general stated that the world is in a significantly stronger position than at any point during the pandemic.
“I am confident that we will be able to declare the end of Covid-19 as a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) this year,” he said.
5,000 fatalities per week
On January 30, 2020, the WHO declared a PHEIC, its highest level of alert, when, outside of China, fewer than 100 cases and no fatalities had been reported.
But it wasn’t until March 11 of that year, when Tedros described the deteriorating situation as a pandemic, that many countries appeared to recognise the peril.
“Three years later, nearly seven million deaths have been attributed to Covid-19, although we know the actual number is much higher.”
He was delighted that, for the first time since he first characterised Covid-19 as a pandemic, the weekly number of reported deaths has decreased over the past four weeks.
However, he stated that more than 5,000 fatalities per week was excessive for a disease that can be prevented and treated.
– Data emerges –
In late 2019 in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the first infections with a new coronavirus were detected.
“Even as we become more optimistic about the end of the pandemic, the question of how it began remains unanswered,” Tedros said as he turned to address newly discovered information about the pandemic’s early days.
The information, provided by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, pertains to samples collected at the Wuhan Huanan market in 2020.
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical director on Covid, stated that they provided molecular evidence that animals susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes Covid-19 disease — were sold at the market.
The information was published on the GISAID global science initiative database in late January, then removed, but not before some scientists downloaded, analyzed, and notified the WHO over the weekend.
“These data could have been shared — and should have been shared — three years ago,” lamented Tedros.
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“We continue to urge China to share information in a transparent manner, to conduct the necessary investigations, and to disclose the results.”
Van Kerkhove stated that all hypotheses regarding the origin of the contagion remain on the table.
She stated that these include entry into the human population via a bat, an intermediate host animal, or a biosecurity violation in a laboratory.
