The World Health Organization (WHO), however, warns that the virus was still circulating.
On Wednesday April 26, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that since last January, the number of deaths caused by Covid-19 has dropped by 95%.
However, she warns that the virus is still circulating.
A virus not about to disappear
The organization calls on countries around the world to learn how to manage the consequences of the disease outside of emergency situations, like the effects felt by some people who have contracted the disease in its so-called long version.
So while the disease is not about to disappear, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who heads the WHO, added that 10% of infections result in long Covid, implying that hundreds of millions of people may require long-term care.
Some countries are experiencing a “rebound”
Despite this, the general manager admitted it in a press conference:
We take great courage from the continued decline in the number of recorded Covid-related deaths, which have fallen by 95% since the start of this year..
And to counterbalance this observation again, he indicated that “However, several countries are seeing a resurgence and in the past four weeks 14,000 people have died from this disease”.
A now dominant XBB variant
Furthermore, as shown by the emergence of the XBB.1.16 variant, “the virus continues to mutate and is still capable of causing new waves of infections and deaths”. And Maria Van Kerkhove, in charge of the fight against Covid at the WHO, indicates for her part that the XBB variant and its sub-variants are now dominant. And they can bypass immune protections; in other words, people who have been vaccinated or already infected can get sick again.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recalled that the WHO still hoped to declare the end of the global health emergency. See you in May for the next WHO quarterly meeting on the subject.