International
WHO reports 17% drop in COVID-19 cases globally
The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday reported a continued decline in COVID-19 cases globally.
The WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, who stated this at a news conference in Geneva, declared a 17 percent drop in COVID-19 cases compared with last week.
He added that the number of COVID-19 deaths had also reduced.
Ghebreyesus said: “This is the fourth week of declining cases.
“The number of deaths also fell for the second week in a row, with 88,000 new deaths reported last week – a terrible number, but a 10 percent decline from the previous week.
“These declines appear to be due to countries implementing public health measures more stringently.’
“But remember, we have been here before. Now is not the time to relax measures or for any of us to let down our guard.
“Every life that is lost now is all the more tragic as vaccines are now being rolled out; the virus continues to circulate widely and new variants are emerging.
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“This is not an unexpected development, but it gives new urgency to our global efforts to bring this pandemic under control.
“Every time the virus mutates, it has the potential to blunt the effectiveness of our vaccines, medicines, and tests.”
According to him, there are three major threats to the United Nations-led international equitable vaccine initiative, COVAX, that requires urgent attention amidst news of decline in COVID-19 cases and deaths.
Ghebreyesus, however, drew attention to a $27billion financing gap in the ACT Accelerator, which supported the development and equitable distribution of COVID-19 tests, treatments and vaccines globally.
“The longer this gap goes unmet, the harder it becomes to understand why given this is a tiny fraction of the trillions of dollars that have been mobilised for stimulus packages in G20 countries,’’ the WHO chief added.
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