We have a chance to end Covid emergency in 2022, WHO official says
Executive Director of the WHO Emergencies Program Mike Ryan speaks at a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland on Feb. 6, 2020.
Denis Balibouse | Reuters
Covid-19 will never be eradicated, but society has a chance to end the public health emergency in 2022, a senior WHO official has said.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum’s virtual Davos Agenda event on Tuesday, Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, said.
“We won’t end the virus this year, we won’t ever end the virus — what we can end is the public health emergency,” he told a panel via videoconference.
“It’s the death, it’s the hospitalizations, it’s the disruptions that cause the tragedy, not the virus. The virus is a vehicle.”
However, he expressed some optimism that it was possible for this year to mark a turning point in the pandemic.
“Yes, we have a chance to end the public health emergency this year,” he said, noting that this could only be done by addressing longstanding inequities in various areas of society, such as fair access to vaccines and health care.
“It won’t end if we don’t [address these issues], this tragedy will continue,” he added.
But Ryan warned that Covid would still pose a threat to society even once it shifted from being a pandemic virus to an endemic one.
“Endemic malaria, endemic HIV kill hundreds of thousands of people every year — endemic does not mean ‘good,’ it just means ‘here forever,'” he said. “What we need to do is get to low levels of disease incidence with maximum vaccination of our populations where no one has to die. That’s the end of the emergency in my view, that’s the end of the pandemic.”
Vaccine inequity
Throughout the panel discussion, vaccine inequity was painted as a barrier to progress against Covid.
Last year, governments of wealthy nations faced criticism from the WHO for their decisions to roll out third doses of Covid vaccines to their entire adult populations while vulnerable people in poor countries were still waiting for their first shot.
In December, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that blanket booster programs risked prolonging the pandemic and increasing inequality, telling a press conference that “no country can boost its way out of the pandemic.”
“Blanket booster programs are likely to prolong the pandemic, rather than ending it, by diverting supply to countries that already have high levels of vaccination coverage, giving the virus more opportunity to spread and mutate,” he told reporters. “And boosters cannot be seen as a ticket to go ahead with planned celebrations, without the need for other precautions.”
In official guidance on booster vaccines, the WHO expressed concern that mass booster programs in wealthier countries would exacerbate vaccine inequity by leaving behind the countries that struggled to afford or access doses.
Many high and upper-middle income countries have rolled out booster programs, while poorer nations are yet to make progress on immunizing their people…
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