WHO declares COVID-19 no longer a global health emergency

"Yesterday, the Emergency Committee met for its 15th session and recommended declaring the public health emergency of international concern to be over. I accept this recommendation. I am therefore extremely pleased to declare that the COVID-19 global health emergency has ended," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on May 5.

The WHO's emergency committee first raised COVID-19 to its highest alert level more than three years ago, on January 30, 2020. The move was intended to help focus global attention on the health threat and spur collaboration on vaccines and treatments.

The lifting of the global health emergency over COVID-19 is a sign that the world has made progress in some areas. However, the WHO said COVID-19 will continue even if it is no longer an emergency.

The death rate from the disease has slowed from a peak of more than 100,000 people per week in January 2021 to just over 3,500 in the week to April 24, according to WHO data.

The WHO has not declared the start or end of the pandemic. It began using the term COVID in March 2020.

Last year, US President Joe Biden said the pandemic was over. Like some other countries, the world's largest economy began lifting its COVID-19 national emergency, meaning it would stop paying for things like vaccines.

Phuong Anh (Source: Reuters)

Useful
Emotion
Creative
Unique
Wrath