“This pandemic has been very serious,” acknowledged WHO’s chief of emergency, Michael Ryan.
Geneva, Switzerland:
The new coronavirus has had a devastating impact around the world, but the World Health Organization warned Monday that pandemics could get worse, and urged the world to be “serious” about the preparation.
“This is a wake-up call,” WHO emergency chief Michael Ryan told reporters to the press for a year since the UN agency first heard about the new virus that extended to China.
Since then, Covid-19 has killed nearly 1.8 million people worldwide, out of more than 80 million infected.
“This pandemic has been very serious,” Ryan acknowledged.
“It has spread around the world extremely quickly and has affected every corner of this planet, but it’s not necessarily the big one.”
He stressed that although the virus is “highly transmissible and kills people … its current mortality (rate) is reasonably low compared to other emerging diseases.”
“We need to prepare for something that may be even more serious in the future.”
WHO senior adviser Bruce Aylward also warned that while the world had made great scientific advances in tackling the coronavirus crisis, including vaccine development at a record rate, it was not yet ready to prevent it. future pandemics.
“We are in the second and third wave of this virus and we are not yet ready to treat and manage them,” he told the briefing.
“So while we’re better prepared … we’re not entirely ready for this one, let alone for the next one.”
– “More ambition” –
Meanwhile, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed hope that the Covid-19 pandemic would have helped the world be better prepared to deal with future threats.
“In terms of awareness, I think we’re getting it now,” he said.
But he stressed that “it was time to be really serious.”
“More ambition will be needed.”
But Tedros also hailed that scientists around the world were working closely to help end the pandemic.
He specifically mentioned the two new strains of the virus that have emerged in Britain and South Africa, which appear to be more infectious than the previous strains.
“We are working with scientists from the UK and South Africa who are conducting epidemiological and laboratory studies, which will guide the next steps,” he said.
He hailed the two countries for testing and tracking the new variants.
And with more than 50 countries now imposing travel restrictions on Britain, he also warned against taking punitive action against countries that share these results transparently.
“Only if countries look for and test effectively will you be able to take variants and adjust strategies to deal with them,” he said.
“We must ensure that countries are not punished for sharing new scientific findings in a transparent manner.”
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)