Malawi Wire

The COVID pandemic is “most certainly not over” World Health Organization Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Sunday at the 75th World Health Assembly.

His warning comes as some countries are rescinding their COVID mandates, and cases are on the rise again.

“Reported cases are increasing in almost 70 countries in all regions,” Tedros said. “This virus has surprised us at every turn — a storm that has torn through communities again and again, and we still can’t predict its path, or its intensity.”

The WHO chief said that while more than 6 million global coronavirus deaths have been reported, the U.N. agency estimates that the worldwide tally is much higher at “almost 15 million deaths.”

Tedros called on countries to do all they can to eradicate COVID, including vaccinating 70% of their population, which would include 100% of people over 60 years old, 100% of health workers. and 100% of people with underlying conditions.

“The pandemic will not magically disappear,” warned the WHO leader, “but we can end it … Science has given us the upper hand.”

Meanwhile, Gallup, the global analytics firm, asks Americans every month — What is the most important problem facing the United States?

The answer has been COVID since the beginning of the pandemic. That all changed this March, however, when concerns about COVID were replaced with worries about the U.S. economy.

Gallup Senior Editor Megan Brenan said in an interview on The Gallup Podcast with Mohamed Younis that apprehension about how the U.S. government is handling the economy and inflation, now tops the list of Americans’ worries.

The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Monday more than 525 million global COVID infections and more than 6 million global coronavirus deaths.

Source: Voice of America

Pfizer-BioNTech announced Monday that three shots of their COVID-19 vaccine provided strong protection for children under the age of 5.

“We are pleased that our formulation for the youngest children, which we carefully selected to be one-tenth of the dose strength for adults, was well tolerated and produced a strong immune response,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said in a statement.

Bourla added that the companies are looking forward to “completing our submissions to regulators globally with the hope of making this vaccine available to younger children as quickly as possible, subject to regulatory authorization.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is set to meet in June to decide whether to authorize the shots for children.

The FDA has already begun evaluating data from Moderna, which says its low dose, two-shot vaccine offers protection for young children.

Meanwhile, World Health Organization Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Sunday at the 75th World Health Assembly that the COVID pandemic is “most certainly not over.”

His warning comes as some countries are rescinding their COVID mandates, just as cases are on the rise again. “Reported cases are increasing in almost 70 countries in all regions,” Tedros said. “This virus has surprised us at every turn — a storm that has torn through communities again and again, and we still can’t predict its path, or its intensity.”

The WHO chief said that while more than 6 million global coronavirus deaths have been reported, the U.N. agency estimates the worldwide tally is much higher at “almost 15 million deaths.”

Tedros called on countries to do all they can to eradicate COVID, including vaccinating 70% of their population, which would include 100% of people over 60 years old; 100% of health workers; and 100% of people with underlying conditions.

The WHO leader warned, “The pandemic will not magically disappear. But we can end it … Science has given us the upper hand.”

The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported Monday more than 525 million global COVID infections and more than 6 million global coronavirus deaths.

Source: Voice of America

Shanghai partially restarted public transport Sunday and set out new classifications for COVID -19 risk areas, signaling a gradual reopening after nearly two months sealed off from the outside world.

China’s largest city has been almost entirely locked down since April, when it became the epicenter of the country’s worst coronavirus outbreak since the early days of the pandemic.

Unlike other major economies, Beijing has dug in its heels on a strict zero- COVID approach that relies on stamping out clusters as they emerge, though this has become increasingly difficult with the infectious Omicron variant.

But as new infections have slowed, Shanghai has cautiously eased restrictions, with some factories resuming operations and residents in lower-risk areas allowed to venture outdoors.

Four of the city’s 20 subway lines restarted Sunday along with some road transport, with officials announcing last week that it would provide a “basic network covering all central urban areas.”

Those who take public transport will have to show a negative COVID test within 48 hours of their journey and have a “normal temperature”, they added Saturday.

Shanghai will also classify areas as high, medium or low-risk after May 31, city health official Zhao Dandan told a press briefing on Sunday.

Districts with 10 or more reported COVID cases — or at least two community infections — will be considered “high-risk” while areas with no positive cases for 14 days will be deemed “low-risk”, Zhao said.

Medium or high-risk areas face lockdowns of two weeks.

The new system appears to set the stage for a degree of movement comparable to other cities, a shift from tough current measures in which even residents of lower risk areas have faced tight restrictions.

Back under lockdown

But despite broader attempts to ease those restrictions, the city’s central Jing’an district was back under lockdown on Sunday, according to an official notice.

Jing’an will undergo three consecutive rounds of mass COVID testing from Sunday and residents are not to leave their homes during this period, a WeChat notice said.

“Exit permits that have been issued will be suspended,” the notice added Saturday, while assuring residents that “victory is not far away.”

The city of 25 million residents reported more than 600 COVID cases on Sunday, 570 of them asymptomatic, according to National Health Commission data.

But restrictions continued in other Chinese cities with COVID cases, including the capital Beijing, which has already banned dining out and forced millions to work from home.

As of Saturday, nearly 5,000 people in Beijing’s Nanxinyuan residential compound had been relocated to quarantine hotels after 26 new infections were discovered in recent days, state media reported.

Fears have run high that the city may take a similar approach to Shanghai, where the lockdown has denied many adequate access to food and medical care.

Source: Voice of America

The Ukraine war, with disease and destruction following in its wake, loomed large Sunday as the WHO convened countries to address a still raging pandemic and a vast array of other global health challenges.

“Where war goes, hunger and disease follow shortly behind,” World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned on the opening day of the U.N. agency’s main annual assembly.

The assembly, due to run through Saturday, marks the first time the WHO is convening its 194 member states for their first largely in-person gathering since COVID-19 surfaced in late 2019.

Tedros warned that important work at the assembly to address a long line of global health emergencies and challenges, including the COVID-19 crisis, could not succeed “in a divided world.”

“We face a formidable convergence of disease, drought, famine and war, fueled by climate change, inequity and geopolitical rivalry,” he warned.

The former Ethiopian health minister said he was viewing the ravages in Ukraine through a personal lens: “I am a child of war.”

In Ukraine and elsewhere, he said, it is clear peace “is a prerequisite for health. We must choose health for peace, and peace, peace, peace.”

But it was war that dominated the high-level speeches on the first day of the assembly.

“The consequences of this war are devastating, to health, to populations, to health facilities and to health personnel,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a video address.

He called on all member states to support a resolution to be presented by Ukraine and discussed by the assembly Tuesday, which harshly condemns Russia’s invasion, especially its more than 200 attacks on health care providers, including hospitals and ambulances, in Ukraine.

The resolution will also voice alarm at the “health emergency in Ukraine,” and highlight the dire impacts beyond its borders, including how disrupted grain exports are deepening a global food security crisis.

But while Russia has been shunned and pushed out of other international bodies over its invasion, no such sanctions are foreseen at the World Health Assembly.

“There’s not a call to kick them out,” a Western diplomat told AFP, acknowledging the sanctions permitted under WHO rules are “very weak.”

The Ukraine conflict is far from the only health emergency up for discussion this week, with decisions expected on a range of important issues, including on reforms toward strengthening pandemic preparedness.

“This meeting is a historic opportunity to strengthen universal architecture for security and health,” Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader Corona told the assembly.

Among the decisions expected at the assembly is Tedros’s reappointment to a second five-year term.

His first term was turbulent, as he helped steer the global response to the pandemic and grappled with other crises, including a sexual abuse scandal involving WHO staff in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

But while he has faced his share of criticism, he has received broad backing and is running unopposed, guaranteeing him a second term.

There will be no shortage of challenges ahead, with the COVID-19 pandemic still raging and demands for dramatic reforms of the entire global health system to help avert similar threats in the future.

And new health menaces already loom, including hepatitis of mysterious origin that has made children in many countries ill, and swelling numbers of monkeypox cases far from Central and West Africa —where the disease is normally concentrated.

One of the major reforms up for discussion involves the WHO budget, with countries expected to greenlight a plan to boost secure and flexible funding to ensure the organization can respond quickly to global health threats.

The WHO’s two-year budget for 2020-21 ticked in at $5.8 billion, but only 16% of that came from regular membership fees.

The idea is to gradually raise the membership fee portion to 50% over nearly a decade, while WHO will be expected to implement reforms, which includes more transparency on its financing and hiring.

The remainder came from voluntary contributions that are heavily earmarked by countries for specific projects.

“There is no greater return on investment than health,” U.N. chief Antonio Guterres told the assembly in a video address.

The COVID pandemic laid bare major deficiencies in the global health system, and countries last year agreed numerous changes were needed to better prepare the world to face future pandemic threats.

Amendments are being considered to the International Health Regulations — a set of legally binding international laws governing how countries respond to acute public health risks.

And negotiations are underway toward a new “legal instrument” — possibly a treaty— aimed at streamlining the global approach to pandemic preparedness and response.But experts warn the reform process is moving too slowly.

Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, who co-chaired an expert panel on pandemic preparedness, warned reporters last week little had changed.

“At its current pace, an effective system is still years away, when a pandemic threat could occur at any time,” Clark said.

Source: Voice of America