Health challenges
THE year 2022 has presented us with many challenges that affect our health. We have lived through another year of the COVID-19 pandemic and a global outbreak of mpox (formerly monkeypox). The people of Ethiopia and Ukraine have been confronted with the death and destruction brought about by war. Ebola struck in Uganda, multiple countries have faced cholera outbreaks, and drought and flooding have significantly increased malnutrition and disease in the greater Horn of Africa and the Sahel. Severe flooding in Pakistan has put an enormous strain on health services.
That’s not to mention the multiple other threats to health that people face year in, year out – threats in the environment, in the products they consume, the conditions in which they live and work, and in their lack of access to essential health services.
And yet, as 2022 draws to a close, we still have many reasons for hope.
The COVID-19 pandemic has declined significantly last year, the global monkeypox outbreak is waning, and there have been no cases of Ebola in Uganda since November 27.
WHO is hopeful that each of these emergencies will be declared over at different points this year.
Despite the increase in cases of and deaths from malaria – another disease that continues to afflict some of the world’s most vulnerable populations – at the beginning of the pandemic, additional efforts in prevention, testing and treatment appear to be paying off, with no further increases in deaths in 2021 and cases increasing at a much slower rate than the year before.
WHO issued comprehensive global reports providing governments with guidance on how to transform mental health services, increase levels of physical activity, and prevent the oral diseases that affect almost half of the world’s population.
COVID-19: progress on many fronts
One year ago, we were in the early stages of the Omicron wave, with rapidly increasing cases and deaths.
But since the peak at the end of January, the number of weekly reported COVID-19 deaths has dropped almost 90 per cent.
The ACT-Accelerator (a global collaboration to accelerate development, production, and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines) has now delivered nearly two billion vaccine doses and almost 200 million tests. The first oral antivirals started arriving in countries in the second half of 2022, while access to oxygen improved in nearly 100 countries.
However, there are still too many uncertainties and gaps for us to say the pandemic is over.
Gaps in surveillance, testing and sequencing mean we do not understand well enough how the virus is changing. Gaps in vaccination mean that millions of people remain at high-risk of severe disease and death. And gaps in our understanding of the post-COVID-19 condition mean we do not understand how best to treat people suffering with the long-term consequences of
infection.
WHO has continued to emphasize the importance of learning from this pandemic so that we are better prepared for the next one. The establishment of the new pandemic fund in September is an important step in the right direction. The creation of an mRNA Technology Transfer Hub in South Africa, to give low- and lower-middle income countries the know-how to rapidly produce their own mRNA vaccines is another. A third is the commitment of countries to negotiate a legally-binding accord on pandemic preparedness and response. A zero draft will be discussed by Member States in February 2023.