With Covid-19 no longer classified as a pandemic, the WHO has issued new standing recommendations for member states, said Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus last week.
These include that all countries update their Covid-19 programmes using the WHO preparedness and response plan, and that they sustain collaborative surveillance… to detect significant changes in the virus, as well as trends in disease severity and population immunity.
“All countries should report Covid-19 data to WHO or in open sources, especially on death and severe disease, genetic sequences and data on vaccine effectiveness,” he added.
Health Policy Watch reports that only 25% of countries are still reporting deaths to the WHO, while just 11% continue to report on hospitalisations.
“The main approach involves immunising those who are most vulnerable to severe outcomes and providing effective treatment for those who become infected,” said Professor Preban Aavitsland, head of the review committee that advised WHO on the recommendations.
“Repeated infections among low-risk individuals will contribute to maintaining population immunity, although new waves of infection are possible, due to waning immunity and evolution of new variants,” said Aavitsland, who heads the Department of Global Public Health and Primary Health Care at the University of Bergen, Norway.
“Most people, however, remain at a very small risk of severe disease.”
Health Policy Watch article – WHO Issues New COVID-19 Recommendations (Open access)
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