Future Viruses Could be Deadlier Than Covid-19: WHO

The World Health Organization (WHO) has cautioned all countries to prepare themselves for an upcoming pandemic that has the potential to be "more lethal" than the coronavirus.

WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who had recently announced that the Covid-19 pandemic is no longer a public health emergency, however, underscored that this downgrade does not mean that it has ceased to be a global health threat.

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‘The likelihood of new variants of Covid 19 arising and leading to further waves of illness and mortality remains, alongside the chance of another pathogen emerging with even greater deadly potential, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. #Covid-19, #Pandemic, #WHO’

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“The potential for the emergence of additional variants causing subsequent waves of illness and death continues, just as the possibility of another pathogen emerging with even higher levels of lethality persists,” he said in an address to the 76th World Health Assembly().

Covid-19 may no longer be a global public health emergency, but countries must still strengthen their response to the disease and prepare for future pandemics and other threats, so that when the next pandemic arises, a decisive and collective response is in place, he said.

We must Give Utmost Priority to the Pursuit of SDGs

Ghebreyesus also reminded the world that in the face of overlapping crises, "pandemics are far from the only threat we face".

Under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which have a 2030 deadline, the Covid-19 pandemic had significant implications for health-related targets, and also impacted the progress made toward the Triple Billion target, announced at the 2017 World Health Assembly.

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Coronavirus is a large positive-strand RNA virus that is surrounded by a protein envelope. The virus obtains its name from the S protein spikes on its surface, which resemble a crown. The overall pattern of increasing coronavirus cases is shown to spike up with the “second wave” of COVID-19.

With spiking effects of the second wave of coronavirus, the best way to keep it at bay is to follow COVID-appropriate safety practices like wearing a mask, regularly cleaning your hands, and coughing into a bent elbow or tissue along with physical distancing (6 feet about 2 arm's length), that may help evade the severity of COVID-19 infection.

"The pandemic has blown us off the course, but it has shown us why the SDGs must remain our north star, and why we must pursue them with the same urgency and determination with which we countered the pandemic," the WHO chief said.

Reference:

Seventy-sixth World Health Assembly - (https://www.who.int/about/governance/world-health-assembly/seventy-sixth-world-health-assembly)

Source: IANS

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