ISLAMABAD: World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that Covid-19 pandemic is no longer a global health emergency.
The International Health Regulations Emergency Committee (IHREC) of WHO discussed the pandemic on Thursday at its fifteenth meeting on Covid-19, and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the public health emergency of world concern declaration should end.
He said in a news briefing that for more than a year Covid-19 has been on a downward trend. This trend has allowed most nations to return to normal life. Tedros said that the emergency committee met yesterday for the 15th time and recommended him to declare an end to the public health emergency of world concern. He accepted the advice, Western media reported.
WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of world concern in January 2020, about 6 weeks before declaring it as a pandemic.
The status creates an agreement among nations to abide by WHO’s emergency management recommendations. Each nation, in turn, declares its public health emergency that carries legal weight. Nations use them to marshal resources and waive rules to ease a crisis.
US to lift health emergency
The United States (US) is set to let its Covid-19 public health emergency end on 11 May. According to WHO officials, Covid-19 continues to spread. The virus is still evolving and remains an international health threat but at a lower level of concern.
There have been over 765 million verified Covid-19 cases since the outbreak of the pandemic, according to WHO data. About 7 million people have died. Europe has had the most confirmed cases, but the US has reported the most fatalities.
