The WHO’s emergency committee met to discuss if the covid-19 pandemic continues to be a global emergency. Read to find out.
Is COVID still a global emergency?
On Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO)’s emergency committee met to discuss covid-19 pandemic’s status as a global health emergency. As per an AFP report, it was chaired by Didier Houssin, a French doctor, and could take days for the final outcome to be revealed. The meeting comes over three years after the WHO sounded the highest emergency alarm when the “novel coronavirus” started spreading. The committee met every three months since then, to discuss the pandemic. It reports to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO chief who decides if covid remains a global emergency.
As per Professor Marion Koopmans, it is possible for covid-19’s emergency status to end. However, “it is critical to communicate that Covid remains a complex public health challenge.” Professor Koopmans is a Dutch virologist on the WHO panel. Another hand close to the negotiations revealed lifting the PHEIC on the current status could impact funding and collaboration across the world. A public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) is a declaration for “n extraordinary event which is determined to constitute a public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease and to potentially require a coordinated international response”.
More on the meeting
Thursday’s meeting of the WHO emergency committee follows one day after the United Nations health agency revealed its newest strategy for combating covid. As per Tedros, this is aiming “to support countries as they transition from an emergency response to longer-term sustained COVID-19 disease prevention, control and management.” When the committee last met in January, experts concluded the need to have a PHEIC tag.