Corona pandemic remains ’emergency of international scope’
GENEVA (dpa-AFX) – The corona pandemic remains an “emergency of international concern” (PHEIC) for the World Health Organization (WHO). This was decided by WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Tuesday on the recommendation of the independent emergency committee, which meets every three months to reassess the situation.
The declaration of an emergency is linked to other special reporting obligations of the member states. “An analysis of the current situation and forecast models suggest that the pandemic is long over,” said the.
He called on all countries to continue taking all protective measures. The pandemic is having an impact on humanitarian operations, mass migration, population shifts and other crises. Countries should prepare to adapt and adjust their aid budgets. He appealed to countries to support WHO’s goal of ensuring that 40 percent of the population of every country in the world will be vaccinated against the virus by the end of the year.
This has failed so far because of the fact that insufficient vaccine is available for many countries, especially in Africa. The committee called on countries with good vaccine supplies to dispense vaccine doses.
The committee also appealed to all countries to recognize six vaccines that the WHO classifies as safe and effective and that have received emergency approval, including when requesting proof of vaccination, for example when traveling. So far, there have been WHO emergency approvals for the corona vaccines from Biontech / Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson and Johnson, Astrazeneca, Sinopharm and Sinovac.
The committee had recommended declaring an international emergency due to the new Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus at the end of January 2020. This is the highest alarm signal that the WHO can give. There is no formal explanation as to whether a health situation is a pandemic or not. WHO chief Tedros described the corona development as a pandemic for the first time on March 11, 2020./oe/DP/nas