GENEVA, Dec 15 — The World Health Organization said Wednesday it hoped that Covid-19 would no longer be a public health emergency in 2023, as it urged China to share information that could pinpoint how the pandemic started.
“Last week, less than 10,000 people lost their lives. That’s still 10,000 too many and there is still a lot that all countries can do to save lives,” he told a press conference. Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s Covid-19 technical lead, said the committee would look at the epidemiology, variants like Omicron, and the impact of the virus.
While the WHO says more than 13 billion vaccine doses have been administered, around 30 per cent of the world has not received a single dose, she added.Nearly 650 million confirmed Covid cases and more than 6.6 million deaths have been reported to the WHO, though the UN health agency acknowledges this will be a vast undercount.
WHO emergencies chief Michael Ryan said the organisation could not simply stop engaging with Beijing “because you’re not cooperating with us on the origins”, as a huge chunk of the world’s population live in China.“This virus will not go away. It’s here to stay and all countries will need to learn to manage it alongside other respiratory illnesses,” he said.