World Health Organization (WHO) director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says "the end is in sight" for the COVID-19 pandemic, but now's not the time to ease up on infection control measures.
"We have never been in a better position to end the pandemic," Dr Tedros said during a press conference at WHO's headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
"We're not there yet, but the end is in sight."
Dr Tedros officially declared COVID-19 a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) in January, 2020.
He described the outbreak as a pandemic in March 2020.
Overnight he said world leaders needed to act on six key focus areas to end the PHEIC:
- Testing — continuing to test suspected COVID-19 cases and tracking confirmed infections
- Clinical care — planning for surges and treating long COVID
- Vaccination — hitting critical targets and prioritising at-risk demographics
- Infection control — maintaining measures at health care facilities
- Rebuilding trust in public health authorities — providing credible, accessible and actionable heath information
- Managing the COVID-19 'infodemic' — training health workers to better identify and address health misinformation
"A marathon runner does not stop when the finish line comes into view," Dr Tedros said.
"She runs harder, with all the energy she has left. So must we.
"We can see the finish line, we are in a winning position, but now is the worst time to stop running, now is the time to run harder and make sure we cross the line and reap the rewards of all our hard work."
Dr Tedros warned there was a risk of "more variants, more deaths, more disruption and more uncertainty" if the world relaxed its COVID measures now.
The WHO has reported that more than 12 billion COVID vaccine doses have been administered worldwide.
It said countries should strive to reach an "aspirational" vaccination coverage of 100 per cent in high priority groups, such as older adults, health workers and immunocompromised people.
Deaths on the decline
"Last week, the number of weekly reported deaths from COVID-19 was the lowest since March 2020," Dr Tedros said.
This graph shows the seven-day average for daily COVID death figures around the world:
Globally, 10,935 COVID deaths were recorded in the week of September 5 to 11, according the WHO's latest report.
That's a decrease of more than 20 per cent compared to the week before.
In that same period, the WHO reported 407 new deaths in Australia.
As of September 11, more than 6.4 million COVID deaths had been reported globally since the pandemic began.
Australia has recorded 14,421 COVID deaths, according to the last federal government update from September 9.
ABC/Reuters
