Dr. Tedros Adhanom, Chief of WHO ( World Health Organisation) issued a fresh warning now, that the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic is now in the “early stages” of the third wave.
He was briefing the media and people around the world on Wednesday, and alerted a fresh alarm over a global surge in cases of the Delta variant of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.
“The Delta variant is now in more than 111 countries and we expect it to soon be the dominant Covid-19 strain circulating worldwide, if it isn’t already,” a UN report quoted World Health Organization chief Ghebreyesus as saying. He added that the coronavirus is continuing to evolve and resulting in more transmissible variants.
We can soften the Third Wave only if we vaccinate and stay alert – Tedros
“Unfortunately…we are now in the early stages of a third wave”, Ghebreyesus said in an address to the emergency committee on Covid-19 established under the International Health Regulations (IHR), a treaty that guides global response to public health risks.
Tedros Adhanom, the director-general of the international public health agency, pointed out that Covid-19 cases and deaths were on the decline for a while due to increasing vaccination rates in Europe and North America, but the global trend has now reversed and cases are rising once again, the last week being the fourth consecutive one which witnessed rising cases in all but one of WHO’s six regions. Deaths are also rising again, after 10 weeks of steady decline, it said.
