WHO to assess whether Covid pandemic officially over

WHO technical lead on Covid-19, Maria Van Kerkhove, said a specialist group is assessing vaccines and their effectiveness against new strains of Covid-19.

The World Health Organization (WHO) will meet this week to assess whether Covid-19 is officially moving out of the pandemic phase.

WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “Almost three years on from declaring a public emergency of international concern, our highest level of alert, this week the emergency committee on Covid-19 will discuss whether the current situation still constitutes a global emergency.” 

He said, however, some countries still face a high level of crisis, with limited access to vaccines and anti-viral treatment.

He added: “In the last eight weeks, more than 170,000 people have died of Covid-19. That’s just reported deaths, the actual number of deaths is much higher.” 

Dr Tedros urged countries to continue with vaccination and booster vaccine campaigns.

“While we’re clearly in better shape than three years ago when this pandemic hit, the collective global response is once again under strain,” he warned.

At the same online briefing, WHO technical lead on Covid-19, Maria Van Kerkhove, said a specialist group is assessing vaccines and their effectiveness against new strains of Covid-19.

“We have a technical group for Covid-19 vaccines which evaluates this, and will make recommendations on any changes that will be needed,” she said.

Contaminated medication

Echoing the concerns of Dr Tedros, she said: “It is absolutely critical that surveillance continues so we can monitor what is in circulation."

Separately, Dr Tedros also discussed serious concerns about contaminated medication leading to hundreds of deaths among children worldwide.

“Over the past four months, several countries have reported incidents of contaminated cough syrups for children,” he said.

He referred to Gambia, Indonesia, and Uzbekistan, but said the issues are more widespread.

“The cases in these three countries are associated with more than 300 deaths, but we know at least seven countries have been affected.

“Most of the deaths have been in children under the age of five. These contaminants are toxic chemicals used as industrial solvents and anti-freeze agents that can be fatal even in small amounts and should never be found in medicines.” 

He called on manufacturing and pharmaceutical companies to ensure their supply lines remain clean and that medication is safe.

“Governments must increase surveillance so they can detect and remove from circulation any substandard medications identified in the WHO alerts,” he urged.