The Covid-19 pandemic, which has infected almost 16 million people worldwide causing more than 640,000 deaths is easily the most severe global health emergency the World Health Emergency has faced, said its director-general.

This is the sixth time global health emergency has been declared under the International Health Regulations, added Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during a media briefing yesterday (July 27) in Geneva, Switzerland.

The pandemic continues to accelerate, he said, highlighting that in the past six weeks, the total number of cases has roughly doubled.

“When I declared a public health emergency of international concern on the 30th of January – the highest level of alarm under international law – there were less than 100 cases outside of China, and no deaths,” he said.

“As required under the International Health Regulations, I will reconvene the Emergency Committee later this week to re-evaluate the pandemic and advise me accordingly.”

The basic measures needed to suppress transmission and save lives: find, isolate, test and care for cases; and trace and quarantine their contact have not changed.

Only adherence to strict health measures such as keeping distance from others, cleaning hands, avoiding crowded and enclosed areas, and wearing a mask could help the world in beating the virus, he said.

“Where these measures are followed, cases go down. Where they’re not, cases go up,” he said.

“Countries and communities that have followed this advice carefully and consistently have done well, either in preventing large-scale outbreaks – like Cambodia, New Zealand, Rwanda, Thailand, Viet Nam, and islands in the Pacific and Caribbean – or in bringing large outbreaks under control – like Canada, China, Germany and the Republic of Korea,” he noted. – TradeArabia News Service