The director of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, affirmed today that COVID-19 shook the world, but at the same time generated the greatest global health response in history.
“When we were celebrating New Year’s Eve, a global threat emerged a year ago, then the Pandemic has claimed many lives and broken families, societies and economies around the world, but it also unleashed the most rapid and extensive health response in human history”, he recalled.
“This mobilization has been translated into an incomparable mobilization of science and at the same time, acts of solidarity, big and small ‘in which health workers were major protagonists”, he added.
The WHO director stressed that 2020 gave lessons and attention notices that, “we must consider in 2021, such as the need to increase investment by all countries in public health, so that our health workers are prepared to prevent and respond to the Pandemics that the future will inevitably bring”.
Health safety measures must continue
He also advised that, “while the vaccination campaigns against the novel Coronavirus are developed, something that will take a while, the therapeutic methods used in 2020 to combat the Virus must be followed. This means keeping physical distance, wearing a mask, taking care of hand hygiene, avoiding crowded places indoors, and trying to meet outdoors”, the expert recalled.
The worst is yet to come
For his part, the director of the WHO emergency program, Mike Ryan, explained that this Pandemic is very serious and affects all corners of the planet. However, “what we have experienced in 2020 is not necessarily the most serious Pandemic, as another even worse pandemic is yet to come”, Ryan declared.
Ryan added that, “in its fundamentals, it emphasizes that the likely scenario is that the current virus becomes another virus strain that will continue to be a threat, but within the context of an effective global vaccination program”.
On December 31st, 2019, the Chinese authorities informed the WHO of the appearance of cases of a Pneumonic disease then unknown in the city of Wuhan, and the Geneva-based organization informed its members of this in the first days of January. A month later, on January 30th, the agency declared an international emergency due to the novel Coronavirus, and on March 11th declared it as a Pandemic.
