WHO Declares End Of COVID-19 As Global Health Emergency
The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday, 05 May declared an end to the COronaVIrus Disease of 2019 (COVID-19) as a public health emergency more than three years after its original declaration.
WHO, however, stressed that it does not mean the disease is no longer a global threat.
The global health agency’s Emergency Committee met on Thursday and recommended WHO declare an end to the coronavirus crisis as a “public health emergency of international concern” which has been in place since 30 January 2020.
During a lengthy conference call to brief the press on the decision at the agency’s headquarters in Geneva, WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said:
It is therefore with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency.
According to WHO’s Coronavirus Dashboard which has collated key statistics since early in the pandemic, the cumulative cases worldwide now stand at 765 222 932, with deaths at 6 921 614.
As of 30 April, a total of more than 13.3 billion vaccine doses have been administered worldwide. Said Ghebreyesus:
It is still killing and it is still changing. The risk remains of new variants emerging that cause new surges in cases and deaths.
According to WHO data, the COVID death rate has slowed from a peak of more than 100 000 people per week in January 2021 to just over 3 500 in the week to 24 April 2023.
This has been attributed to widespread vaccination, the availability of better treatments and a level of population immunity from prior infections.
WHO does not declare the beginning or end of pandemics, although it did start using the term for COVID in March 2020. WHO’s emergencies director Michael Ryan said:
In most cases, pandemics truly end when the next pandemic begins.
COVID-19 was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China and has since spread globally, leading to a worldwide pandemic.
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