…as it commended the world for the successful COVID-19 fight
Staff Reporter
World Health Organisation (WHO), Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has commended the world for its successful fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, urging nations to remain vigilant as the world is not yet out of the woods.
In a press statement, Dr Ghebreyesus noted that the rest of the developed countries had most of their citizens vaccinated, while most African countries are yet to be vaccinated.
“Equitable vaccination remains the single most powerful tool we have to save lives. Striving to vaccinate 70% of the population of every country remains essential for bringing the pandemic under control, with priority given to health workers, older people and other at-risk groups.
Many high and middle income countries have reached this target, and have seen a decoupling between cases and deaths. Even some high-income countries now roll out fourth doses for their populations, one third of the world’s population is yet to receive a single dose, including 83% of the population of Africa,” said Dr Ghebreyesus.
The WHO Director General further highlighted the steps that are being undertaken by WHO to prevent future catastrophes from occurring and killing millions of people as the COVID-19 pandemic has done.
“Even as we continue to respond to the pandemic, WHO is also putting in place new measures to help keep the world safe against future epidemics; today we are launching a new strategy to scale up genomic surveillance globally for pathogens with epidemic and pandemic potential,” said Ghebreyhesus.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe was ranked as one of the countries with the best managed COVID-19 pandemic, through information dissemination and the number of people that have been vaccinated so far. According to a report on the country’s response to COVID-19, there is a recovery rate of 96% with 3 194 active cases having been recorded. The number of new COVID-19 cases decreased to 1 301 during the week under review, compare to the 2004 recorded the previous week.
