GENEVA: With a surge in deaths due to coronavirus, World Health Organization Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said "we cannot pretend it's not there."
"Learning to live with Covid-19 doesn't mean we pretend it's not there. It means we use all the tools we have to protect ourselves, and protect others," Ghebreyesus said in a tweet on Thursday.
There has been a 35 per cent rise in Covid-19-related deaths in four weeks across the world.
Briefing media on monkeypox, Covid-19 and other global health issues, the WHO Chief said, "Over the past four weeks, reported Covid-19 deaths globally have increased by 35 per cent. Just in the past week, 15,000 people around the world lost their lives to Covid-19. This is completely unacceptable when we have all the tools to prevent infections and save lives."
He further said that all the people across countries are tired of the virus and pandemic. "But the virus is not tired of us. Omicron remains the dominant variant, with the BA.5 sub-variant representing more than 90 per cent of sequences shared in the last month," Ghebreyesus added.
Regarding monkeypox, Ghebreyesus said that almost 7,500 cases were reported last week, which is a 20 per cent increase over the previous week.
"More than 35,000 cases of monkeypox have now been reported to WHO, from 92 countries and territories, with 12 deaths. Almost 7,500 cases were reported last week, a 20 per cent increase over the previous week, which was also 20 per cent more than the week before," he said.
Half of people in poorer countries have now received two vaccine doses against Covid-19, a global vaccine alliance said on Thursday, hailing progress in closing the vaccine equity gap.
Gavi, which co-leads the Covax global vaccine distribution scheme with the World Health Organization and others, said the 92 lower-income countries receiving donor-funded jabs had reached 50 per cent coverage on average.
Gavi, the WHO and others have long condemned the stark inequities in access to vaccines developed to battle the still raging Covid pandemic.
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