The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, assured this Wednesday that China is not giving complete figures on their deaths from COVID-19 in the current outbreak that it suffers, which makes it impossible to know the true scope of the disease, even on a global level.
“11,500 COVID-19 deaths were reported globally last week (…), but this number is almost certainly an underestimate, given the lack of data on COVID-related deaths in China”Tedros said in his weekly press conference.
According to WHO statistics, China reported 252,000 COVID-19 infections and some 700 deaths in the first week of January.
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Similar criticisms of China were launched by the head of WHO Health Emergencies, Mike Ryan, who at the same press conference stressed that “We lack adequate information to make a full risk assessment.”
“At the same time, we recognize that China has worked hard in recent weeks to strengthen its internal capabilities and serve the most urgent needs of its people” before the outbreak, said the Irish expert.
SEVERAL MEETINGS, BUT UNSUCCESSFUL
The insufficient flow of information continues despite the frequent exchanges between the WHO and the Chinese health authorities, such as the one that took place last week in the framework of the weekly meetings between the organization and the representatives of that and other member states.
At the last of those meetings “China offered updated information on its response and provided data on its capacity in intensive care units, treatments or vaccination coverage,” stressed the director of the WHO anti-covid technical unit, María Van Kerkhove.
“We welcome that information, but there are still important gaps that we are trying to solve with China”said the American, who insisted that obtaining this data is important “to understand the dynamics of COVID transmission in the country”.
Van Kerkhove also asked China for more data on coronavirus sequencing in patients, after those shared by the country’s health authorities for now point out that SARS-CoV-2 does not present great variations or mutations despite the high number of cases that have occurred. it is feared there is in the Asian giant.
“The sequences reported by the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention are mainly BA.5 sublineages (already present in many other countries), but we have requested more information to be able to do more in-depth analyses,” Van Kerkhove added.
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BETTER THAN A YEAR AGO, BUT STAGNED
On the global situation, Tedros stated that “Without a doubt, globally we are in a better position than a year ago”when the peak of infections by the omicron wave occurred, and since then the deaths registered worldwide have fallen by 90%, but in recent months, he qualified, there has been a certain stagnation.
“Since mid-September, the number of reported weekly deaths has remained between 10,000 and 14,000, a figure that the world cannot accept when we have tools to avoid them”Tedros assured.
The Ethiopian expert also regretted that only fifty countries provide complete information on the sex and age of those who died from COVID-19, something important to monitor the lethality of the virus.
In the second half of 2022, he stressed, 90% of the registered deaths were people over 65 years of age.
Tedros also warned that genome sequencing of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has fallen by 90% in the last year, making it difficult to monitor possible variants that may arise.
THE VIRUS DOES NOT DISAPPEAR BY NOT LOOKING AT IT
“It is understandable that countries cannot keep up the same pace of testing and sequencing that they had during the peak of the omicron variant, but on the other hand the world cannot close its eyes and hope that the virus disappears”, assured the CEO.
“Sequencing remains vital to detect the virus and measure the emergence and spread of new variants, such as XBB 1.5”he stated, mentioning the sublineage first detected in the Northeast United States and that the WHO itself has described as the most contagious of all those known to date.
Source: EFE
Source: Gestion
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