WHO COVID-19 Technical Lead highlights challenges faced by nations

World Health Organisations’ COVID-19 Technical Lead – Maria Van Kerkhove, on April 27, 2022, highlighted the challenges and difficulties being faced by the countries all across the world since the onset of contagious COVID-19 mutant.

Kerkhove stated, “At a global level, we are still very much in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. We are still dealing with this pandemic virus, but countries are at very different stages of where they are in dealing with the virus”.

“The reason that there at different stages is because they have different access to tools. Population-level immunity is increasing around the world, and it’s really quite high because of the COVID-19 vaccination rates that are increasing all around the world”.

The vaccination rates of the countries are not reaching an adequate or same level, she then underscored.

“The reason behind not similar vaccination rates is because we do not have vaccines in all the countries and in particular, vaccination amongst those who are most at risk: are the people who are above the age of 60, people with underlying conditions and the frontline workers”.

“On the positive side, many countries are seeing a significant decline in hospitalizations and in mortality. And that’s what we want to see. There’s a very positive sign that these tools that we have are working. On the other hand, the other countries do not see the same level of impact as again; they do not have those vaccines”.

“So, while some of the countries might be in a different phase, where the emergency that they are dealing with is not at the same level of intensity, we are definitely not seeing that across all countries. And so, for us, what is really important is that we find ways to balance the response of dealing with this virus while keeping people alive and getting their livelihoods back on track”, Kerkhove further cites.