WHO with good news: end of the corona pandemic in 2023?

Created: 12/14/2022, 7:28 p.m

By: Stefanie Fischhaber

WHO chief Ghebreyesus is optimistic that the corona pandemic will end next year.

© Martial Trezzini/ dpa

The WHO sees the end of the corona pandemic in the near future: the global health emergency could be lifted in 2023.

Geneva – After almost three years of the corona pandemic, the measures have almost become a habit.

In the meantime, many countries have relaxed their handling of the corona virus.

The feeling of normality as it was before Corona is returning.

However, it is clear that there will be no "after" Corona.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is at least optimistic that the pandemic will end next year.

WHO predicts the end of the corona pandemic for 2023 - but: "The virus will stay"

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva on Wednesday that he hoped that the global health emergency due to the corona pandemic could be lifted next year.

The hope is to say next year: "This is no longer a pandemic." But it is also clear: "The virus will stay." But the world has the tools - vaccines, medicines and rules of conduct - to deal with it.

The WHO cannot simply declare the pandemic itself “over”.

The term "pandemic" does not even appear in the WHO's range of instruments, the international health rules.

It can only lift the “Public Health Emergency of International Concern” (PHEIC) described therein, which was imposed in 2020 because of Corona.

Return to normal: Coronavirus is becoming increasingly endemic

This lifting of the emergency would not have any concrete effects.

A lifting of corona regulations in Germany, for example, is not tied to the WHO lifting the emergency.

An independent panel of experts regularly reviews the global situation and recommends to the WHO whether an emergency should be lifted or maintained.

Corona measures could therefore continue to exist in 2023.

In Germany, too, numerous experts had already spoken out in favor of an early end to the pandemic situation.

For example, the virologist Christian Drosten explained that the dynamics of rapid successive waves of infection that break quickly is a sign of the end of the pandemic.

Stiko boss Mertens said in October that the corona virus had become endemic.

Numbers of monkeypox are declining - "Many reasons for hope"

The head of the WHO was also able to announce good news on the subject of monkeypox: the number of cases of Mpox (monkeypox) had fallen by more than 90 percent.

With a view to 2023, he said: "There are many reasons for hope, but also many reasons for concern." Among other things, he mentioned the hunger crisis, especially in Africa, the continued lack of sanitation in many places, unhealthy nutrition and malaria and tuberculosis diseases.