WHO expects long-term response efforts against COVID-19

GENEVA — The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic still constitutes a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), and long-term response efforts are needed given an anticipated lengthy duration of the pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday.

The WHO Emergency Committee on COVID-19, convened by WHO DirectorGeneral Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus under the International Health Regulations (IHR), held its fourth meeting last Friday, WHO said in an online statement released on Saturday.

The committee unanimously agreed that the outbreak still constitutes a PHEIC, and noted the importance of “sustained community, national, regional, and global response efforts,” said the statement.

Tedros had declared a PHEIC, WHO’s highest level of alarm under IHR, on January

30 at a time when there were fewer than 100 cases and no deaths outside China.

He issued the committee’s advice to States Parties as Temporary Recommendations under the IHR, according to the statement.

“The pandemic is a once-in-a-century health crisis, the effects of which will be felt for decades to come,” Tedros told the committee in his opening remarks last Friday.

“Many countries that believed they were past the worst are now grappling with new outbreaks. Some that were less affected in the earliest weeks are now seeing escalating numbers of cases and deaths. And some that had large outbreaks have brought them under control,” Tedros said.