The World Health Organization has warned that the Covid-19 pandemic is “far from over,” with new and more coronavirus strains anticipated to spread throughout the world.
“The WHO’s emergency committee has voiced worry that the Covid-19 epidemic is being mischaracterized as being over when it is far from over,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, chief of the global health body.
“It has also warned about the strong likelihood for the emergence and global spread of new and possibly more dangerous variants of concern that may be even more challenging to control,” he added.
Tedros had a day ago warned that the world may be in the “early stages” of the Covid-19 third wave amid a surge in Delta variant cases.
In view of this, the WHO has called on the world to ensure maximum vaccination coverage as early as possible.
“The committee has called on all countries to support WHO’s call to vaccinate at least 10% of the population of every country by the end of September,” said Tedros.
The WHO committee chairman Didier Houssin had also on Thursday said that countries with limited access to vaccines are experiencing new waves of infections.
“Many countries have now vaccinated their priority populations, it is recommended that doses should be shared with countries that have limited access before expanding national vaccination programmes into lower-risk groups,” said Houssain.
