Covid-19 is no longer a global health emergency, says WHO

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has announced that Covid-19 is no longer represents a 'global health emergency'. The global health body however said that even though the emergency phase was over, the pandemic hasn't come to an end. It added that thousands of people are still dying from the virus every week.

"It is therefore with great hope that I declare COVID19 over as a global health emergency," WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday. He, however, said "That does not mean COVID-19 is over as a global health threat. Last week, COVID-19 claimed a life every three minutes and that’s just the deaths we know about."

"It is therefore with great hope that I declare OVID19 over as a global health emergency.

However, that does not mean COVID-19 is over as a global health threat.

Last week, COVID-19 claimed a life every three minutes – and that’s just the deaths we know about"-@DrTedros pic.twitter.com/n6zad8qSdx

— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) May 5, 2023

Tedros said the pandemic had been on a downward trend for more than a year, acknowledging that most countries have already returned to life before COVID-19. He bemoaned the damage that COVID-19 had done to the global community, saying the virus had shattered businesses and plunged millions into poverty.

"COVID has changed our world and it has changed us," he said, warning that the risk of new variants still remained. When the UN Health agency first declared the coronavirus to be an international crisis on January 30, 2020, it hadn't yet been named COVID-19 and there were no major outbreaks beyond China.

More than three years later, the virus has caused an estimated 764 million cases globally and about 5 billion people have received at least one dose of vaccine.

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