Just days before its committee decides whether to cancel or extend the global public health emergency, the president of the World Health Organization expressed “serious concern” over the escalating number of COVID deaths worldwide, as reported by Yahoo.
Fatalities rising globally
Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated at a news conference that COVID-related fatalities have been rising globally since December and that 170,000 individuals have passed away as a result of the virus in the previous eight weeks.
“That’s just reported deaths,” he said. “The actual number of deaths is much higher.”
The global public health organization’s emergency committee will meet Friday to vote on whether to end the organization’s COVID emergency status after three years. Ghebreyesus said he would “not preempt” the committee but remains “very concerned by the situation in many countries and the rising number of deaths.”
“While clearly, we’re in better shape than we were three years ago when the pandemic hit, the global collective response is once again under strain,” said Ghebreyesus, who will make the final decision after receiving recommendations from the committee.
Factors causing strain include the fact that too few people are vaccinated and boosted and too few people have access to antivirals, in addition to the fragility of healthcare systems dealing with other threats like the flu and RSV. Also contributing is a “torrent of pseudoscience and misinformation,” he added.
“My message is clear: Do not underestimate this virus,” he said. “It has, and will continue, to surprise us, and it will continue to kill unless we do more.”
Death toll doesn’t factor in China
Ghebreyesus expressed optimism that the global public health emergency would end in 2023 in mid-December. 10,000 deaths per week were reported globally at the time, which is a sixth of what they were at Omicron’s height in January 2022.
“That’s still 10,000 too many, and there is still a lot of countries can do to save lives, but we have come a long way,” he said at the time.
In a Jan. 19 epidemiological update, the WHO stated that reported COVID deaths for the period of mid-December to mid-January were at 53,000, an increase of 20% from the same time a month earlier. The WHO is still awaiting more information on the almost 60,000 COVID deaths that China recorded over a comparable time period, so they are not included in the total, according to the report. The pandemic’s recorded deaths worldwide total 6.7 million.
Over the previous month, there has been an increase in reported deaths across the Americas, Europe, the Western Pacific, and the Eastern Mediterranean. Over the same time period, reported deaths decreased by 76% in Africa and 56% in South-East Asia.
The definition of an international emergency
A public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) is defined by international health regulations as “an extraordinary event which is determined to constitute a public health risk to [WHO member states] through the international spread of disease and to potentially require a coordinated international response,” according to the WHO. It implies that the situation is “serious, sudden, unusual, or unexpected” and may require immediate international action.
After a member state alerts the WHO to a potential emergency, the UN emergency committee is formed to advise the WHO director-general on whether the situation qualifies as a PHEIC.
The director general, however, has the final say. In July, after the committee twice failed to reach an agreement, Ghebreyesus proclaimed an international public health emergency for mpox—the new name for monkeypox that the organisation suggested last fall to lessen stigma—saying that requirements in international health regulations required him to do so.
PHEICs must be reviewed every three months, and emergency committees also provide advice on whether to terminate them. For COVID, polio, and mpox, there are now WHO worldwide public health emergencies. Additional emergency committees have been contacted seven times for illnesses including MERS, H1N1, and Ebola (three times), among others. They can be contacted for bacterial infections, radioactive substances, and chemical agents.
Declaring a PHEIC is done to make it easier for nations to coordinate their efforts on vaccines, treatments, and/or diagnostics. However, detractors claim that these announcements could have a negative economic impact on the affected nations, particularly if they lead to trade and travel restrictions.
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Source: Yahoo
