Photo: FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP / Getty Images
The Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) , Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, stressed that the global emergency due to the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus shows that the global health crisis “has not ended” and the situation “continues being dangerous and precarious. ”
Although some think that COVID is over, it is not, we continue to experience cycles of panic and forgetfulness in which progress made with great effort can be lost, ”said Tedros at the inauguration of an extraordinary WHO assembly to negotiate a pandemic preparedness treaty.
The Ethiopian expert stated that South Africa and Botswana, the first countries to report cases of the new variant, “should be grateful for it, not penalized”, in the sense that many governments have suspended air links. These and other territories of southern Africa.
“ The current system discourages countries from alerting others to possible threats “, Tedros lamented in view of what happened with those countries, noting that” this shows that the world needs a new pandemic preparedness agreement “in which these problematic issues are corrected .
The general director stated that it is not yet known whether the Omicron variant is associated with a greater ease of contagion or reinfection, with more serious cases or greater resistance to vaccines, although he stressed that “scientists around the world are working around the clock to answer these questions.”
He added that ” the world should not need a wake-up call “like the one generated by the variant to remain alert in a crisis that” tests the world’s ability to prevent and respond to future s pandemics. ”
Tedros highlighted that inequality in the distribution of vaccines continues to demonstrate management errors in the current pandemic , in which “the 80 percent of the doses in the world have gone to the countries of the g 20 ”.
“ Low-income countries, mostly in Africa, have received just 0.6 percent of all vaccines, “he lamented, warning that more than a hundred nations have not yet achieved the goal of immunizing at least one 40% of its population, something that the WHO wanted to achieve in all territories before the end of the year.
“We understand that each government has the responsibility to protect its people, it is natural, but equality in the distribution of vaccines is not a charitable act, it is something that interests all countries because no one can get out of this pandemic alone ”, he assured.
“ As long as inequality in vaccines continues, the virus will have opportunities to spread and evolve in ways that we cannot predict or prevent ”, warned the head of the WHO .
With information from Efe.
It may interest you:
· of the coronavirus and warns that it is possibly more contagious
· Ómicron: what is known about the new “variant of concern” of the coronavirus