UPDATED: WHO head says ‘dangerous’ to assume pandemic is nearing end

Jan 24 (Reuters) – The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday it would be dangerous to assume that the highly transmissable Omicron was the last variant to emerge and that the world was in the ‘end game’ of the pandemic.

However, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it was possible this year to exit the acute phase of the pandemic where COVID-19 constitutes a global health emergency if strategies and tools such as testing and vaccines are used in a comprehensive way.

Speaking at the opening of Executive Board meeting, Tedros said since Omicron was first identified a little over nine weeks ago, more than 80 million cases had been reported to the U.N. agency, more than were reported in the whole of 2020.

“Conditions are ideal for more variants to emerge,” he added. 

Earlier the head of the World Health Organization on Monday urged countries to work together to bring the acute phase of the pandemic to an end, saying that they now have all the tools available to do so.

“The COVID-19 pandemic is now entering its third year and we are at a critical juncture,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a press conference alongside Germany’s development minister Svenja Schulze.

“We must work together to bring the acute phase of this pandemic to an end. We cannot let it continue to drag on, lurching between panic and neglect.”

Tedros said on Monday that Germany had become the agency’s largest donor, without giving details. Historically, the United States has made the biggest financial contribution among member states to the organisation.

Schulze said that the top priority of Germany, which took over the G7 Presidency, is to end the pandemic worldwide and called for a “massively accelerated, truly global vaccination campaign” in order to do so.

The event in Geneva kicks off a week of WHO Executive Board meetings where key aspects of the U.N. health agency’s future are due to be discussed, including Tedros’ bid for a second term and a proposal to make the agency more financially independent.

(Reporting by Emma Farge and Paul Carrel; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Photo – Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO). EPA-EFE/SALVATORE DI NOLFI