WHO: omicron variant reminds us that the situation is still dangerous

The Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, stressed today that the global emergency due to the new omicron variant of the coronavirus it shows that the global health crisis “is not over” and the situation “continues to be dangerous and precarious.”

“It is one more reminder that although some think that COVID has ended, it is not, we continue to live cycles of panic and forgetfulness in which progress made with great effort can be lost”said Tedros at the opening 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, “They should be grateful for it, not penalized”In the sense that many governments have suspended air links with those and other southern African territories.

“The current system discourages countries from alerting others to possible threats”Tedros lamented in view of what happened with those countries, pointing out that “this shows that the world needs a new pandemic preparedness agreement” in which these problematic issues are corrected.

The CEO stated that it is not yet known whether the variant omicron is associated with greater ease of contagion or reinfection, more severe cases or greater resistance to vaccines, although he stressed that “Scientists around the world are working around the clock to answer these questions.”

Added that “The world shouldn’t need a wake-up call” such as the one generated by the variant to remain alert in a crisis that “tests the world’s ability to prevent and respond to future pandemics.”

Tedros stressed that the inequality in the distribution of vaccines continues to demonstrate the management errors in the current pandemic, in which “80 percent of the doses in the world have gone to the g20 countries.”

“Low-income countries, mostly in Africa, have received just 0.6 percent of all vaccines”, he regretted, warning that more than a hundred nations have not yet achieved the goal of immunizing at least 40% of their 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”, assured.

“As vaccine inequality continues, the virus will have opportunities to spread and evolve in ways that we cannot predict or prevent,” warned the head of the WHO.

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