The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that the world has never been in a better position to end the pandemic. This is the organisation’s most optimistic outlook since the Covid-19 pandemic struck. Its director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, “We are not there, but the end is in sight.”
He, however, added that governments across the world need to remain vigilant and ready to respond to any threat that may emerge.
According to the WHO, during the week of September 5-11, the number of new weekly cases worldwide decreased by 28 per cent over the previous week to more than 3.1 million. The number of new weekly deaths was down 22 per cent to just under 11,000.
Tedros likened the pandemic response to a marathon race.
“Now is the time to run harder and make sure we cross the line and reap the rewards of all our hard work,” he said, adding that the virus is circulating at a very intense level around the world at the present time. “In fact, the number of cases that are being reported to the WHO we know are an underestimate,” Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, said, adding that the future waves of infection, potentially at different time points throughout the world, will be caused by different subvariants of Omicron or even different variants of concern.
