World must prepare for disease more deadlier than Covid, WHO chief warns

World Health Organization chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said that the world must prepare for a virus that is “even deadlier” than Covid which he stated has killed at least 20 million, reported The Independent.

The global health body has recently declared that the Covid-19 pandemic is no longer a health emergency. Dr Tedros told its annual health assembly in Geneva that it was time to advance negotiations on preventing the next pandemic. In a meeting of the World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland, the WHO chief sounded an alarm that the Covid-19 pandemic is far from over.

“The threat of another variant emerging that causes new surges of disease and death remains,” Tedros said. “And the threat of another pathogen emerging with even deadlier potential remains.”

He warned that nation states cannot “kick this can down the road” and that the next global disease was bound to “come knocking”.

The WHO has identified nine priority diseases that pose the biggest risk to public health. They were deemed to be most risky due to a lack of treatment or their ability to cause a pandemic, the Daily Mail reported.

‘COVID TURNED OUR WORLD UPSIDE DOWN’
“The world was taken by surprise and found unprepared for the Covid-19 pandemic, the most severe health crisis in a century,” he was quoted as saying by The Mirror.

“Over the past three years, Covid-19 has turned our world upside down. Almost seven million deaths have been reported, but we know the toll is several times higher – at least 20 million.

“If we do not make the changes that must be made, then who will? And if we do not make them now, then when?” he said at the annual health assembly.

He said when the next pandemic comes knocking – and it will – we must be ready to answer decisively, collectively and equitably.

“A commitment from this generation [to a pandemic accord] is important, because it is this generation that experienced how awful a small virus could be,” said Dr Tedros.

The WHO’s declaration comes just four months after China ended its prolonged zero-Covid policy restrictions and was hit by a big surge in infections.