'Once-in-a-Century Health Crisis': WHO Chief Hopes Coronavirus Pandemic Ends within 2 Years

The head of the World Health Organisation says he hopes the world can end the coronavirus pandemic in less than two years - less time than it took for the 1918 flu pandemic to be stopped.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described COVID-19 as a "once-in-a-century health crisis" and said while globalisation had allowed the virus to spread quicker than the flu did in 1918, there was also now the technology to stop it that hadn't been available a century ago.

"We hope to finish this pandemic (in) less than two years, especially if we can pool our efforts," he said during a press briefing on Friday, insisting it should be possible to tame the novel coronavirus faster than the deadly 1918 pandemic.

Compared to back then, the world today is at a disadvantage due to its "globalisation, closeness, connectedness", which has allowed the novel coronavirus to spread around the world at lightning speed, Tedros acknowledged.

But the world also now has the advantage of far better technology, he said. By "utilising the available tools to the maximum and hoping that we can have additional tools like vaccines, I think we can finish it in a shorter time than the 1918 flu," he added.

WHO's emergencies chief Dr Michael Ryan noted that the 1918 pandemic hit the globe in three distinct waves and that the second wave, which started during the fall of 1918, was the most devastating. But he said it didn't appear COVID-19 was following the same pattern.

"This virus is not displaying a similar wave-like pattern," he said. "When the virus is not under control, it jumps straight back up."

Ryan said that while pandemic viruses often settle into a seasonal pattern, that didn't appear to be the case for the coronavirus.

The pandemic has to date killed nearly 8 lakh people and infected close to 23 million worldwide.

But the deadliest pandemic in modern history, Spanish flu, killed as many as 50 million victims and infected around 500 million around the world between February 1918 and April 2020.

Five times more people died of it than did in World War I. The first victims were recorded in the United States, before it spread to Europe and then around the world. That pandemic came in three waves, with the deadliest second wave beginning in the latter half of 1918.