“WHO Director General warns of Covid-19 resurgence despite 95% decrease in incidence”

MADRID, 26 Abr. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, assured, at a press conference this Wednesday, that “the incidence of Covid-19 has fallen by 95 percent since the beginning of this year” but that, “some countries are seeing an increase in the number of Covid-19 and in the last four weeks 14,000 people lost their lives from this disease”.

With the emergence of the new omicron variant XBB 1.16, Dr. Tedros has highlighted that “the virus continues to change and continues to be capable of causing new waves of disease and death.” In this sense, he has highlighted the role of immunization against all infections and, especially, against Covid-19: “all vaccines have played a key role in stopping the Covid-19 curve”.

For her part, the technical leader of the response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, explained that the XBB 1.5 and XBB 1.16 variants “have very similar characteristics.” Likewise, the expert has assured that the XBB variant in general “is dominant in the world”, which indicates that the virus continues to evolve and will continue to do so.

However, Dr. Kerkhove has pointed out that, although the virus continues to evolve, it circulates “quite deactivated”. “You have to maintain supervision to be able to monitor the virus and understand what each of these mutations mean,” she declared.