The number of newly reported Covid-19 cases has fallen dramatically, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, urging the world to seize the opportunity to end the pandemic.
Newly reported cases of the disease, which has claimed millions of lives since it was identified in late 2019, fell to their lowest level since March 2020 last week, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
“We have never been in a better position to end the pandemic,” he told reporters. “We’re not there yet, but the end is in sight.”
But the world must step forward to “seize this opportunity,” he added.
“If we don’t seize this opportunity now, we risk more variants, more deaths, more disruption and more uncertainty.”
According to the latest WHO epidemiological report on Covid-19, the number of reported cases fell by 12 percent to 4.2 million in the week ended September 4, compared to a week earlier.
– ‘Underestimate’ –
But the agency has warned that the falling number of reported cases is deceptive, as many countries have scaled back testing and may not detect the less serious cases.
“The number of cases being reported to the WHO is an underestimate,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead for Covid, told reporters.
“We feel that there are actually many more cases circulating than are being reported to us,” she said, warning that the virus is “currently circulating at very intense levels around the world.”
Since the pandemic began, the WHO has counted more than 600 million cases and about 6.4 million deaths, although both numbers are also considered serious undercounting.
A WHO study published in May, based on excess mortality observed in different countries during the pandemic, estimates that up to 17 million people could have died from Covid in 2020 and 2021.
Van Kerkhove noted that going forward there are likely to be “future waves of infection, possibly at different times around the world, caused by different subvariants of Omicron, or even by different variants of concern.”
But, she added, “these future waves of infection don’t have to lead to future waves of death.”
– “Take advantage of this opportunity” –
To help countries do what is needed to contain the virus, the WHO released six policy papers on Wednesday.
Among the recommendations, WHO is urging countries to invest in vaccinating 100 percent of the most vulnerable groups, including health workers and the elderly, and to continue testing and sequencing for the virus.
“These Policy Briefs are an urgent call for governments to scrutinize their policies and strengthen them for Covid-19 and future pathogens with pandemic potential,” Tedros said.
“We can end this pandemic together, but only if all countries, manufacturers, communities and individuals take action and seize this opportunity.”
WHO Emergency Director Michael Ryan agreed.
“Even as the pandemic subsides and the number of cases may fall, we must maintain a high level of vigilance,” he told reporters.
“We still have a very versatile, evolving virus that has shown us time and time again over two and a half years how it can adapt, how it can change.”
