At least 90% of the world’s population has some form of immunity to covid-19, World Health Organization (WHO) director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday, while warning against declining vigilance. .
This drop in surveillance leaves the door open for the emergence of a new variant that is likely to spread and supplant the currently dominant Omicron variant, Tedros said during a press conference.
“The WHO estimates that at least 90% of the world population currently has some type of immunity to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, either due to previous infection or vaccination,” he added, referring to the virus responsible for the coronavirus pandemic. Covid-19.
The ideal conditions for the emergence of a new variant.
The WHO chief warned against the temptation to prematurely claim that the emerging phase of the pandemic is over. “We’re not there yet,” he said.
“Gaps in surveillance, testing, sequencing and vaccination continue to create the perfect conditions for the emergence of a worrisome new variant that could cause significant mortality,” he warned.
Declared a new variant of concern by the WHO a year ago, the Omicron variant has since spread across the globe and has proven to be far more contagious than its predecessor, Delta.
According to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, more than 500 Omicron subvariants are currently circulating, all of them highly contagious and with mutations that make them able to overcome immune barriers more easily, although they cause less severe forms of the disease than previous variants. .
At least 6.6 million deaths
Countries have reported a total of 6.6 million deaths to the WHO, while almost 640 million confirmed cases have been recorded.
But the real cost is much higher, according to the WHO.
In the last week, more than 8,500 deaths from Covid-19 have been registered, “which is not acceptable after three years of a pandemic, when we have so many tools to prevent infections and save lives,” stressed the director general of the WHO.
Source: BFM TV
