Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that “the virus feeds on weakness”.
Geneva:
The head of the World Health Organization on Monday called on everyone to keep fighting Covid-19, warning that while we are fed up with fighting the pandemic, the virus “is not tired of us” .
Addressing the main WHO annual meeting, which resumed Monday after being interrupted in May, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also hailed the election of Joe Biden as the next US president, expressing hope that this might signal closer global cooperation to end the pandemic.
It was vital, he said, that people follow the science and resist the urge to turn a blind eye to the virus.
“We might be tired of COVID-19. But it’s not tired of us,” he said.
Tedros, speaking of quarantine after coming into contact with someone who tested positive for Covid-19, warned that the virus is attacking the weakness.
“It attacks those whose health is poorer, but it also addresses other weaknesses: inequality, division, denial, wishful thinking and willful ignorance,” he said.
“We cannot negotiate with him, nor close our eyes and hope that he will disappear.”
“It ignores political rhetoric or conspiracy theories,” he said.
“Our only hope is science, solutions and solidarity.”
His comment came after Covid-19 has killed more than 1.25 million people and infected more than 50 million worldwide since it first emerged in China late last year.
Tedros warned that the pandemic has laid bare the need for the world to regain a “sense of common purpose”, which in recent years has been eroded by “creeping tides of misguided nationalism and isolationism”.
“With that in mind, we congratulate President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris and look forward to working closely with their administration.”
Biden has signaled that his administration will overturn Donald Trump’s decision to remove the United States – traditionally the main donor to the WHO – from the United Nations health agency.
“We must reinvent the leadership, based on mutual trust and mutual accountability, to end the pandemic and address the fundamental inequalities that are at the root of so many global problems,” said Tedros.
– Taiwan frozen –
Taiwan, which has said China’s “obstruction” has prevented it from attending the World Health Assembly (WHA), was noticeably absent from the World Health Assembly (WHA) resumption of this meeting. week and accused the WHO of prioritizing politics over health.
The autonomous island of 23 million people has seen remarkable success in the fight against the pandemic – with just seven deaths and less than 600 confirmed cases.
But he is excluded from the WHO by Beijing, which considers Taiwan as its own territory – not even allowed to participate as an observer as was the case between 2009 and 2016.
“While the world is still gravely threatened by the Covid-19 pandemic … it is an irony of the goal of ‘health for all’ under the WHO charter” to exclude Taiwan, said the Taipei Foreign Ministry on Monday.
AMS will also focus on the more than 60 other health emergencies that WHO has responded to this year, including the measles, Ebola and yellow fever outbreaks.
This will be an opportunity for countries to discuss reforming WHO so that it can tackle challenges such as pandemics faster and more effectively.
Tedros again called for “a system in which countries agree to a regular and transparent peer review process” of their health policies.
He said the Universal Periodic Review at the United Nations Human Rights Council, where the human rights situation of each country is assessed every few years, could serve as inspiration.
The idea was put forward last year by the Central African Republic and Benin, and France, Germany and Cameroon have already agreed to work on this project, he added.
The issue of the transparency of health policies is at the heart of the Covid-19 pandemic, China being accused by certain countries including the United States of having covered at least the first cases of coronavirus.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
