End of Covid-19 pandemic is 'in sight', says WHO chief

GENEVA - The world has never been in a better position to end the Covid-19 pandemic, the head of the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday, his most optimistic outlook yet on the years-long health crisis which has killed over six million people.

"We are not there yet. But the end is in sight," WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters at a virtual press conference.

But the world needed to step up to "seize this opportunity", he added.

"A marathon runner does not stop when the finish line comes into view. She runs harder, with all the energy she has left. So must we. We can see the finish line. We're in a winning position. But now is the worst time to stop running," he warned.

"If we don't take this opportunity now, we run the risk of more variants, more deaths, more disruption, and more uncertainty."

That was the most upbeat assessment from the UN agency since it declared an international emergency in January 2020 and started describing Covid-19 as a pandemic three months later.

The virus, which emerged in China in late 2019, has killed nearly 6.5 million people and infected 606 million, roiling global economies and overwhelming healthcare systems.

The rollout of vaccines and therapies have helped to stem deaths and hospitalisations, and the Omicron variant which emerged late last year causes less severe disease. Deaths from Covid-19 last week were the lowest since March 2020, the UN agency reported.

But Tedros again urged nations to maintain their vigilance. He said countries need to take a hard look at their policies and strengthen them for Covid-19 and future viruses. He also urged nations to vaccinate 100 per cent of their high-risk groups and keep testing for the virus.

The WHO said countries need to maintain adequate supplies of medical equipment and healthcare workers.

"We expect there to be future waves of infections, potentially at different time points throughout the world caused by different subvariants of Omicron or even different variants of concern," said WHO's senior epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove.

With over one million deaths this year alone, the pandemic remains an emergency globally and within most countries.

"The Covid-19 summer wave, driven by Omicron BA.4 and BA.5, showed that the pandemic is not yet over as the virus continues to circulate in Europe and beyond," a European Commission spokesman said.

WHO's next meeting of experts to decide whether the pandemic still represents a public health emergency of international concern is due in October, a WHO spokesman said.

Global emergency

"It's probably fair to say most of the world is moving beyond the emergency phase of the pandemic response," said Dr Michael Head, senior research fellow in global health at Southampton University.

Governments are now looking at how best to manage Covid-19 as part of their routine healthcare and surveillance, he said.

Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States have approved vaccines that target the Omicron variant as well as the original virus as countries prepare to launch winter booster campaigns.

In the United States, Covid-19 was initially declared a public health emergency in January 2020, and that status has been renewed quarterly ever since.

The US health department is set to renew it again in mid-October for what policy experts expect is the last time before it expires in January 2023.

US health officials have said that the pandemic is not over, but that new bivalent vaccines mark an important shift in the fight against the virus. They predict that a single annual vaccine akin to the flu shot should provide a high degree of protection and return the country closer to normalcy. - REUTERS, AFP