End in sight for Covid emergency status: WHO

Mary Ann Benitez

Covid as a global health emergency is likely to be declared over sometime this year - four years after the pandemic that has caused millions of people to die first emerged in China in late 2019.

The World Health Organization declared Covid-19 caused by SARS-Cov2 strain as a public health emergency of international concern in January 2020, to sound the alert for countries to be ready to respond to the worst pandemic in 100 years.

The UN health agency's director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who declared the emergency alert in 2020, will convene the Emergency Committee next month to "consider all the evidence that there currently is, and then advise the director general of WHO whether the Public Health Emergency of International Concern should continue or not," said Babatunde Olowokure, WHO Regional Emergency director for the Western Pacific, at a virtual press conference from Manila yesterday.

In response to questions from The Standard, he said Tedros has said that "he is highly confident that sometime this year we will be able to declare this public health emergency of international concern over."

Olowokure also said that WHO, which is marking its 75th year anniversary this month, believed it was fine for some countries to declare the emergency over within their own country.

So far, the downward trajectory in hospitalizations and deaths from Covid has continued but at a global level the public health emergency remains in place.

He said WHO has not seen upticks at this time.

"What we do know is that whenever there are holidays or events where people gather together we will expect a slight increase in the number of cases. We have recently had the Easter holidays and there have been other holidays as well, and so it's not a concern but we continue to monitor."

Meeting the press for the first time was Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO acting regional director for the Western Pacific appointed following the dismissal last month of Takeshi Kasai following allegations from staff members of racist, abusive and unethical behavior that may have compromised the UN agency's response to the pandemic.

It was the first time in WHO's history that a regional director had been dismissed.

Jakab said the WHO had initiated work with countries on a new pandemic treaty and an update of the International Health Regulation. "It's also very clear that we need to strengthen use of the 'One Health' approach - bringing together actions to protect human health, animal health and the health of the planet."

On Kasai, Jakab said in response to The Standard question in the briefing that there was a substantial investigation into the allegations. The committee of the Western Pacific comprising all 37 member states in the region convened on the allegations and took the decision to terminate the contract of Kasai, Jakab said.

The WHO headquarters in Geneva was also consulted and agreed that Kasai be fired "and so Kasai had left this job and I am in this job to be acting as a regional director."

A new regional director will be nominated by the committee in October and appointed by the WHO Executive Board in January 2024.