The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) says it would be dangerous to assume the highly transmissible Omicron variant would be the last COVID-19 variant to emerge and that the world was in the "end game" of the pandemic.
However, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it was possible for the world to exit the "acute phase" of the pandemic this year.
Speaking at the opening of the WHO Executive Board meeting, Dr Tedros said since Omicron was first identified a little over nine weeks ago, more than 80 million cases had been reported to the UN agency, more than were reported in the whole of 2020.
"There are different scenarios for how the pandemic could play out and how the acute phase could end. But it's dangerous to assume that Omicron will be the last variant or that we are in the end game," Dr Tedros said.
"To change the course of the pandemic, we must change the conditions that are driving it."
Dr Tedros said if testing and vaccines are used "comprehensively", the "acute phase" of the pandemic could be ended this year.
"We can end COVID-19 as a global health emergency, and we can do it this year," he said.
"What does that look like? It means achieving our target to vaccinate 70 per cent of the population of every country [by the middle of the year] with a focus on the most at-risk groups."
He said the world would be "living with COVID for the foreseeable future".
"But learning to live with COVID cannot mean that we give this virus a free ride. It cannot mean that we accept almost 50,000 deaths a week from a preventable and treatable disease," he said.
Dr Tedros also appealed for strengthening the WHO and increasing funding for it to help stave off health crises.
"Let me put it plainly: If the current funding model continues, WHO is being set up to fail. The paradigm shift in world health that is needed now must be matched by a paradigm shift in funding the world's health organisation," he said.
ABC/wires
