WHO maintains international emergency for coronavirus despite lower lethality

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced that it maintains the international emergency due to COVID-19, declared since January 30, 2020, despite the fact that the current wave of global infections, with record numbers, is not accompanied by an increase in deaths, as many new cases are mild.

The WHO Emergency Committee, meeting for more than four hours on January 14, advised the organization’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, to maintain this level of alert, who approved this proposal, said a statement issued.

Chaired by Dr. Didier Houssin, the committee, which meets approximately every three months to analyze the evolution of the pandemic, estimated that the global risk associated with it remains high, due in part to the rise of new variants of the SARS-CoV coronavirus. -2, like the omicron, already dominant on the planet.

Among the recommendations issued by the committee at its sixth meeting, its request that the WHO speed up research on the efficacy of vaccines and the duration of immunity they provide stands out.

It also suggests that limitations on international travel be dictated in a limited and data-driven way, after last November the alert for the omicron variant affected global air traffic again and did not prevent the transmission of this new strain of coronavirus.

Given the unequal distribution of vaccines that persists globally and doubts about their effectiveness in curbing transmission, the committee insists that governments should not require proof of vaccination from international travelers.

WHO experts consider that, despite the fact that vaccines have lost effectiveness in preventing the spread and transmission of the coronavirus, they are still efficient in preventing serious forms of the disease, including fatal cases.