ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday that the COVID-19 emergency is over and the deadly virus is no longer a global threat.
“Yesterday, the 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," WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press conference.
The announcement was made after detecting a downward trend of the pandemic for over a year. “This trend has allowed most countries to return to life as we knew it before Covid-19,” said Ghebreyesus.
WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global emergency in January 2020 and a global pandemic in March of the same year, leading countries around the world to impose mandatory lockdowns and close borders.
Ghebreyesus warned against taking COVID-19 lightly now the emergency is over, saying that there are still risks of new variants of the virus emerging and causing new cases and deaths. He asked governments to keep their guards up.
"The worst thing any country could do now is to use this news as a reason to let down its guard, to dismantle the systems it has built, or to send the message to its people that CPVID-19 is nothing to worry about,” he said.
The virus killed nearly seven million people worldwide with more than 765 million recorded cases, according to WHO data.
In the Kurdistan Region, there were more than 450,000 cases and nearly 7,500 people died. The last two cases recovered in February, according to the health ministry.
“Yesterday, the 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," WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press conference.
The announcement was made after detecting a downward trend of the pandemic for over a year. “This trend has allowed most countries to return to life as we knew it before Covid-19,” said Ghebreyesus.
WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global emergency in January 2020 and a global pandemic in March of the same year, leading countries around the world to impose mandatory lockdowns and close borders.
Ghebreyesus warned against taking COVID-19 lightly now the emergency is over, saying that there are still risks of new variants of the virus emerging and causing new cases and deaths. He asked governments to keep their guards up.
"The worst thing any country could do now is to use this news as a reason to let down its guard, to dismantle the systems it has built, or to send the message to its people that CPVID-19 is nothing to worry about,” he said.
The virus killed nearly seven million people worldwide with more than 765 million recorded cases, according to WHO data.
In the Kurdistan Region, there were more than 450,000 cases and nearly 7,500 people died. The last two cases recovered in February, according to the health ministry.
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