The World Health Organization (WHO) has now classified the COVID-19 coronavirus as an entrenched health problem and intends to provide updated recommendations for combating it, the organization said in a press release.
“Director General Tedros Adhanom Gebreyesus has ruled that COVID-19 is now an entrenched and persistent public health problem. It is no longer a public health emergency of international significance,” the document states.
“It will convene the International Health Regulations Review Committee to advise on standing recommendations for a long-term response to COVID-19,” WHO said.
Gebreyesus will consult in light of WHO’s 2023-2025 plans for responding to COVID-19. These include measures for countries around the world to jointly monitor the spread of the coronavirus and protect populations from infection. WHO advises countries to adhere to this plan during the transition to updated coronavirus control methods.
The list of temporary recommendations includes preparing for future COVID-19 outbreaks, introducing coronavirus vaccination into lifelong immunization programs, gathering information from various surveillance data sources for a complete picture of the spread of the disease, ensuring access to treatment for COVID-19 and diagnostics for the disease. In addition, WHO advises continuing to lift travel restrictions and not requiring any evidence of vaccination.
At the same time, the WHO said, “member countries are currently negotiating an agreement on pandemic prevention, preparedness and control.” In particular, they are talking about amendments to the International Health Regulations. For example, Dr. Michael Ryan, director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, commenting on the negotiations, said that there should never be a repeat of cases where patients could not even get to the emergency room.
Earlier Friday, Gebreyesus announced that the WHO no longer views the COVID-19 coronavirus as a global health threat. However, he clarified that this does not mean that the threat of the coronavirus is completely gone.
He added that during the three years of the pandemic, experts have recorded nearly 7 million deaths due to infection with the coronavirus.
“But we know that the number of deaths is actually several times higher – at least 20 million,” the WHO chief stressed.
According to the Worldometers statistics website, more than 687 million people worldwide were infected with the coronavirus during the pandemic, with more than 660 million COVID-19 cures recorded. The first place in the number of infections is occupied by the U.S. with more than 106.7 million, the second is India, where almost 45 million cases of infection with COVID-19 were identified, and the third is France with about 40 million cases.
