The World Health Organization (WHO) says the end of the COVID-19 pandemic is “in sight”.
The organization says the weekly number of deaths from the virus around the world is at its lowest level since March 2020 – the month Britain first began shutting down.
In the UK, infections have fallen to their lowest level in almost 11 months.
“We have never been in a better position to end the pandemic – we are not there yet, but the end is in sight,” said the agency’s director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“A marathon runner doesn’t stop when the finish line appears, she runs harder, with all her energy left. Neither do we.
“We can see the finish line, we are in a winning position. But now is the worst time to stop running.”
He said it was time to “run harder” and added: “If we don’t take advantage of this opportunity now, we risk more variation, more deaths, more disruptions. more and more uncertainty. So let’s seize this opportunity.”
He called on the world to “come together to end this pandemic” and announced that WHO is publishing six policy briefs outlining actions governments must take now.
The documents include guidance on testing, immunization, best practices in disease management, maintaining infection control measures in health facilities, and preventing the spread of misinformation. bias and community participation.
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WHO has estimated that 19.8 million deaths have been prevented by 2021 thanks to the Covid-19 vaccine, and 12 billion doses have been used around the world.
But it warned that the virus still posed an “acute global emergency” and highlighted that in the first eight months of 2022, more than a million people had died from Covid-19.
