<div style="text-align: justify; "><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: 1rem;">The WHO said Wednesday that Covid-19 deaths had dropped by 95 percent since the start of the year -- but warned the virus was still on the move.</span><br></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The World Health Organization said Covid-19 was here to stay and countries would have to learn how to manage its ongoing non-emergency effects, including post-Covid-19 condition, or Long Covid.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We're very encouraged by the sustained decline in reported deaths from Covid-19, which have dropped 95 percent since the beginning of this year," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">"However, some countries are seeing increases, and over the past four weeks, 14,000 people lost their lives to this disease.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"And, as the emergence of the new XBB.1.16 variant illustrates, the virus is still changing, and is still capable of causing new waves of disease and death."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead on Covid-19, said XBB sub-lineages were now dominant worldwide.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">They have an increase in growth advantage and are also showing immune escape, meaning people can be reinfected despite having been vaccinated or previously infected.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">She called for increased surveillance through testing "so that we can monitor the virus itself and understand what each of these mutations means".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That knowledge could feed into vaccine composition and inform decisions on handling the virus, she said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Tedros reiterated that the WHO remained hopeful of declaring an end to Covid-19 as a public health emergency of international concern, with the committee that advises him on the status due to convene next month for its regular quarterly meeting.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"But this virus is here to stay, and all countries will need to learn to manage it alongside other infectious diseases," he added.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Tedros meanwhile said that an estimated one in 10 infections resulted in Long Covid, suggesting that hundreds of millions of people would need longer-term care.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The WHO chief also noted how the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted vaccination programmes, with an estimated 67 million children missing out on at least one essential jab between 2019 and 2021.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Following a decade of stalled progress, vaccination rates are back to where they were in 2008, he said, leading to rising outbreaks of measles, diphtheria, polio and yellow fever.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">All countries must address "the barriers to immunisation, whether it's access, availability, cost or disinformation", he said. AFP</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">bnbd24/kh</div></div>