COVID-19 will cease being health emergency - WHO
MBABANE – COVID-19 will no longer be a public health emergency of international concern.
This was shared by the World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General Tedros Ghebreyesus, during a press briefing that was held in Geneva on Friday.
The WHO define a public health emergency as an occurrence or imminent threat of an illness or health condition caused by bio terrorism, epidemic or pandemic disease, or an infectious agent or biological toxin that poses a substantial risk to humans by either causing a significant number of fatalities or permanent long-term disability.
Concern
On January 30, 2020, COVID-19 was declared a public health emergency of international concern. Several countries followed suit and declared state of emergencies to respond to the virus. On March 16, 2020, Eswatini declared a national emergency and scaled up response to the pandemic. Since then, the country confirmed 74 323 cases of COVID-19 and 1 425 people succumbed to the virus.
March 11, marked three years since WHO first described the global outbreak of COVID-19 as a pandemic.
The introduction of vaccines, among other responses that the country and the WHO implemented in response to the pandemic, has weakened the global pandemic.
“We declared a global health emergency to spur countries to take decisive action, but not all countries did so. Three years later, there are almost seven million reported deaths from COVID-19, although we know that the actual number of deaths is much higher,” he said.
The director general stated that the world was certainly in a much better position than it had ever been during the pandemic.
“I am confident that this year we will be able to say that COVID-19 is over as a public health emergency of international concern,” he said.
Strengthening
He emphasised on the importance of strengthening the world’s defences against future epidemics and pandemics. The director general said this would be possible if countries worked together.
“That is what the pandemic accord: An agreement between nations to work in cooperation with each other, not in competition, to prepare for and respond to epidemics and pandemics.
“It’s essential to emphasise that this accord is being negotiated by countries, for countries, and will be adopted and implemented by countries, in accordance with their own national laws. Countries, and countries alone, will decide what is in the accord, not the staff of WHO. This accord would be an instrument of international law, similar to the many other accords and treaties that nations have agreed,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Director of Health Services at the Ministry of Health Dr Velephi Okello, stated that after the WHO publicly declared that the pandemic was no longer an international emergency, Eswatini would also follow suit, with the help of the local WHO office.
She mentioned that already the country was on de-escalated mode. The de-escalated mode was announced in September last year. This saw the closure of Mavuso Trade and Exhibition Centre, as an isolation centre. Also, the country issued weekly COVID-19 updates instead of the daily updates.
Emergency
“If the WHO removes it as a health emergency, Eswatini will follow suite,” she said.
She mentioned that the availability of vaccines and their uptake were a contributing factor to the lowered numbers of people contracting the virus. Dr Okello added that the vaccines also reduced the strength at which variants of the pandemic were spreading. She noted that variants that were formed recently, like the XBB sub variant of omicron among others, did not reach the country. The WHO named the XBB.1.5sub variant as a variant of interest (VOI).