The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that it is rather too early for countries to either declare victory over Covid-19 or give up attempts to halt transmission of different variants of the virus.
Speaking on Tuesday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters that ‘It is premature for any country to either surrender or to declare victory’.
‘This virus is dangerous, and it continues to evolve before our very eyes.’
Africa Today News, New York reports that his comment came as Denmark on Tuesday became the first EU country to lift all of its domestic Covid-19 curbs despite record numbers of cases of the milder Omicron variant, with a number of other countries eying similar moves.
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‘We’re concerned that a narrative has taken hold in some countries that because of vaccines and because of Omicron’s high transmissibility and lower severity, preventing transmission is no longer possible, and no longer necessary,‘ Tedros maintained.
‘Nothing could be further from the truth,’ he said, stressing that ‘more Covid-19 transmission means more deaths.’
The UN health agency chief pointed out that since Omicron was first spotted in southern Africa 10 weeks ago, nearly 90 million cases have been reported to the WHO — more than in all of 2020.
And while the new Covid-19 variant is known to be milder, he stressed that ‘we are now starting to see a very worrying increase in deaths in most regions of the world.’
It is vital, he said, to keep striving to halt transmission of the virus.
‘We are not calling for any country to return to so-called lockdown,’ Tedros said, adding though that ‘we are calling on all countries to protect their people using every tool in the toolkit, not vaccines alone.’
The WHO head stressed the need to continue tracking emerging variants, including the Omicron sub-lineage BA.2.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK