Yesterday, Friday, the Director of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that the gaps in the strategies to tackle Corona this year continue to create ideal conditions for the emergence of a new variant, as parts of China are witnessing a rise in the number of cases of the virus.
“We’re so close to being able to say that,” Tedros said The pandemic emergency phase is over. But we haven’t reached that goal yet.”
The organization estimates that about 90% of the world’s population has some level of immunity against corona, either due to a previous infection or as a result of receiving a vaccine.
From the Corona vaccination campaign in China
But Tedros said that “gaps in testing and vaccination continue to create conditions for the emergence of a new, worrying variant that could cause many deaths.”
Tedros indicated that the decrease in vigilance leaves the door open for the emergence of a new mutant that is likely to spread and replace the current Omicron mutant.
Omicron, announced by the World Health Organization a year ago, is a new, disturbing variant that has since spread around the world, proving that it is much more contagious than its predecessor, Delta.
And according to Tedros, it is now spreading More than 500 sub-mutants All Omicrons are highly contagious and have mutations that make them able to overcome immune barriers more easily, although they cause less severe forms of disease compared to previous variants.
Last week, more than 8,500 deaths due to Corona were recorded worldwide, which Tedros considered “unacceptable after three years of the pandemic, at a time when we have many tools to avoid infection and save lives.”
in turn, China is currently setting records of corona infections, and the number of cases also began to rise in Britain after declining for months.
Protests against Corona restrictions in China
The easing of the requirement for corona tests and quarantine rules in some Chinese cities was met with a mixture of relief and anxiety on Friday, as hundreds of millions await a shift in national virus policies after the spread of social unrest.
The World Health Organization urged governments to focus on reaching those at risk, such as those over the age of sixty and those with medical problems, in order to vaccinate them against Corona.
For her part, Mary Ramsay, director of the Public Health Program at the British Health Security Agency, said: “While Covid-19 and influenza can represent a mild infection for many, we must not forget that they can cause severe illness or even death in the most vulnerable members of our societies.”