COVID-19 No Longer A Global Health Emergency, WHO Says
In a media briefing held today, WHO made this big announcement which will come as a major relief to everyone around the world.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared that Covid-19 no longer represents a "global health emergency".
The Covid-19 emergency committee had met on May 4 and had recommended to WHO to declare an end to the public health emergency of international concern.
On Friday, WHO accepted the recommendation and officially declared "COVID-19 over as a global health emergency."
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization took to Twitter to confirm this development.
"Yesterday, the #COVID19 Emergency Committee met for the 15th time and recommended to me that I declare an end to the public health emergency of international concern. I have accepted that advice. With great hope I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency," he wrote.
WHO has also released a full statement on the 15th meeting of the International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee regarding the Covid-19 pandemic. The official Twitter handle of WHO quoted Dr Tedros and wrote,
"It is therefore with great hope that I declare #COVID19 over as a global health emergency. However, that does not mean COVID-19 is over as a global health threat. Last week, COVID-19 claimed a life every three minutes – and that’s just the deaths we know about"
In a media briefing which took place few hours ago, WHO Director-General spoke about Covid-19 at length and mentioned the timeline of how this deadly virus came into existence through an unknown cause in Wuhan and now after one thousand two hundred and twenty one days since that announcement - Covid-19 also known as Coronavirus Pandemic is no longer a global health emergency.
For more than a year now, the Covid-19 pandemic has been on a downward trend globally, with people getting more immune due to vaccination and infection. The mortality rate has also been decreasing sharply which also led to ease in pressure on health & medical systems across the world.
This downward trend has allowed most countries around the world to return to their routine lives, similar to the pre-covid era.
As far as Covid cases in India are concerned, India had logged 3,962 new coronavirus infections, while the active cases have decreased to 36,244 from 40,177, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Thursday, May 4.
The active cases now comprise 0.08% of the total infections, and the national Covid-19 recovery rate has been recorded at 98.73%, the ministry said.
According to the ministry's website, 220.66 crore doses of Covid vaccine have been administered in the country so far under the nationwide vaccination drive.