The World Health Organization (WHO) decided this Monday
to maintain the maximum alert level for the
covid-19 pandemic, exactly three years after declaring the disease an international public health emergency.
The director general of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, followed the recommendations of the emergency committee on covid-19, made up of experts, who met this Friday, according to a statement released this Monday.
The Committee
declared the covid-19 epidemic a public health emergency of international concern on January 30, 2020
, at a time when there were still no deaths out of just 100 cases outside of China.
Tedros had indicated that he deemed lifting the highest alert level premature.
"Although I do not want to get ahead of the opinion of the emergency committee, I remain very concerned about the situation in many countries and the increasing number of deaths," the press in Geneva declared last week, according to the AFP news agency.
According to WHO figures, and since its outbreak at the end of 2019,
covid-19 has officially caused 6,804,491 deaths
as of January 27, although the organization and experts agree that the number of deaths is much higher. high.
In October of last year, the Emergency Committee of the Sanitary Regulations had clarified that it would not rule on the "end of the pandemic" since it is not a category with legal status, but a characterization.
"We use the word pandemic so that the entire population has a more or less homogeneous understanding of the risks represented by a disease that is present in several countries. The WHO does not officially declare a 'pandemic' in legal instruments," he declared on that occasion. Ciro Ugarte, director of Health Emergencies at PAHO.
And he expanded: "On the other hand, the WHO determines if a 'Public Health Emergency of International Importance' is taking place."
Since March 2020, the Committee has met every three months "to review the situation and whether the criteria for a public health emergency continue to be met."
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