As coronavirus infected over 17.6 million people and killed over 680,000 people in the world, the World Health Organization Emergency Committee gathered on August 1 at the WHO headquarters in Geneva to study for the 4th time the current health situation.
In a release published after the meeting of the Committee, the World Health Organization states the coronavirus pandemic was likely to be “lengthy”. They add: “WHO continues to assess the global risk level of Covid-19 to be very high. The committee highlighted the anticipated lengthy duration of this Covid-19 pandemic, noting the importance of sustained community, national, regional and global response efforts”.
Moreover, the Emergency Committee urges the World Health Organization to provide guidance to all countries to manage the current pandemic “to reduce the risk of response fatigue in the context of socio-economic pressures”, and to boost the research on still unclear elements of coronavirus, especially its animal origin and its spread through animals.
The Committee also says WHO shall quickly shed light on other dynamics such as “modes of transmission, shedding, potential mutations; immunity and correlates of protection”.
“The pandemic is once-in-a-century health crisis, the effects of which will be felt for decades to come. Many scientific questions have been resolved; many remain to be answered. Most of the world’s people remain susceptible to this virus even in areas that have experienced severe outbreaks” WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says.
The World Health Organization Emergency Committee will gather again in three months.
