WHO declares end to COVID global health emergency

(CMR) The World Health Organization said COVID-19  is no longer a global public health emergency more than three years after its original declaration.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he made the decision following a recommendation from the WHO’s emergency committee, which met on Thursday for the 15th time.

“I have accepted that advice. It is, therefore, with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency,” Tedros said.

The WHO's designation of a “public health emergency of international concern” is reserved for the most serious disease outbreaks, with seven such since 2007: monkeypox, COVID, Zika, H1N1 flu, polio, and Ebola twice.

“For more than a year, the pandemic has been on a downward trend, with population immunity increasing from vaccination and infection, mortality decreasing, and the pressure on health systems easing. This trend has allowed most countries to return to life as we knew it before COVID-19,” Tedros said on Friday.

He warned that countries should not let down their guards as people continue to die from COVID-19.

“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 COVID-19 is nothing to worry about,” Tedros said.

The US is set to end its COVIDpublic health emergency on Thursday. The designation has been in place since January 2020. President Joe Biden signed a resolution into law last month ending the country's  national emergency.

“What this news means is that it is time for countries to transition from emergency mode to managing COVID-19 alongside other infectious diseases,” Tedros said on Friday.

The COVID death rate has slowed from a peak of more than 100,000 people per week in January 2021 to just over 3,500 in the week to April 24, 2023, according to WHO data, reflecting widespread vaccination, availability of better treatments, and a level of population immunity from prior infections.

“The battle is not over. We still have weaknesses, and those weaknesses that we still have in our system will be exposed by this virus or another virus. And it needs to be fixed,” said the WHO's emergency director, Michael Ryan.