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Geneva (AFP) – The increase in Covid-19 infections shows that the pandemic is “far from over”, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Tuesday, which maintains it as one of the largest public health emergencies at the international level.
“New waves of the virus show once again that Covid-19 is far from over,” WHO Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva on Tuesday.
The number of cases notified to the United Nations agency increased by 30% in the last two weeks, due to the omicron subvariants –BA.4 and BA.5– and the lifting of sanitary measures.
Faced with this situation and the increased pressure on health systems, Tedros asked governments to act with measures that have already been shown to be effective.
“As hospitalizations and transmission of Covid-19 increase, governments must implement measures such as the use of masks, improved ventilation, and screening and treatment protocols,” he added.
“The virus is running freely and countries are not effectively managing the disease burden to the best of their ability,” he said, referring to the hospitalization of patients with severe infections and the growing number of people with long Covid.
“Uncertain and unpredictable”
The WHO covid-19 emergency committee met Friday by videoconference and determined that the pandemic remains a public health emergency of international importance, the organization’s highest alert level by unanimous decision of the committee.
WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan noted during the meeting that recent changes in testing policies were making it more difficult to detect new cases of Covid-19 and the evolution of the virus.
The committee pointed out that the decrease in detection tests and, therefore, in genomic sequencing, made it “increasingly” difficult to assess the impact of Covid-19 variants.
“This makes it impossible to evaluate the variants of the virus that are currently circulating and the new ones,” he said.
According to the committee, the evolution of the virus and the characteristics of the new variants remain “uncertain and unpredictable.”
booster dose
The committee also noted the recent increase in the number of Covid-19 cases in different regions of the world, as well as the lack of adapted public health measures in regions affected by a resurgence of cases.
For its part, the European office of the WHO, which is in charge of 53 countries, recommended a second booster dose of the covid vaccine for the elderly and vulnerable groups.
Since the end of May, the European continent has recorded a sharp increase in infections.
In Moscow, for example, the Russian capital, cases increased by 57% in the last week, according to health authorities, who once again recommended the use of masks.
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