The World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was optimistic that the Covid-19 pandemic will end in 2022 only if inequity ends. In a statement on Friday, WHO's Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said "as enter the third year of the Covid-19 pandemic, I'm confident that this will be the year we end it - but only if we do it together".
He added, "while no country is out of the woods from the pandemic, we have many new tools to prevent and treat Covid-19. The longer inequity continues, the higher the risks of this virus evolving in ways we can't prevent or predict. If we end inequity, we end the pandemic".
The WHO chief said millions of people have missed out on routine vaccination, services for family planning, treatment for communicable and non-communicable diseases.
He further emphasized to prepare the world for future epidemics and pandemics, “We established the new WHO BioHub System for countries to share novel biological materials,” the WHO head added.
He reiterated that "we need all countries to work together to reach the global target of vaccinating 70% of people in all countries by the middle of 2022."
The world has recently witnessed a new variant of Covid-19, which has been detected in South Africa, as 'Omicron'. The WHO has classified Omicron as a 'variant of concern'.
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