Geneva: World Health Organization today urged all nations to take the emergence of the new COVID-19 variant, Omicron “extremely seriously”, and revealed that its secretariat too had taken this developement in the same way.
“The emergence of any new variant should capture our attention, especially one as highly mutated as Omicron…But we should not be surprised. This is what viruses do,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a COVID-19 information session for Member States on the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, here today.
“We still have more questions than answers about the effect of Omicron on transmission, severity of disease, and the effectiveness of tests, therapeutics and vaccines,” he said, adding that the WHO Secretariat is working with partners all over the world to fill in the knowledge gaps as quickly as possible.
While calling on all Member States to optimize public health and social measures and ensure that high-risk and vulnerable individuals in all countries are fully vaccinated immediately, WHO also reminded that the world was already dealing with a highly transmissible, dangerous variant – the Delta variant, which accounts for almost all cases globally.
Also read: WHO warns overall risk due to Omicron is “very high”
“We need to use the tools we already have to prevent transmission and save lives from Delta. And if we do that, we will also prevent transmission and save lives from Omicron – so enhancing surveillance, testing, sequencing and reporting,” Dr. Ghebreyesus said. He further reiterated, “the longer we allow the pandemic to drag on – by failing to address vaccine inequity, or to implement public health and social measures in a tailored and consistent way – the more opportunity we give this virus to mutate in ways we cannot predict or prevent”.
The D-G said WHO continues to call on all Member States to optimize public health and social measures and ensure that high-risk and vulnerable individuals in all countries are fully vaccinated immediately. “The global response must be calm, coordinated and coherent,” he stressed.
He expressed concerns that several countries were introducing “blunt, blanket measures” that are not evidence-based or effective on their own, and which will only worsen inequities.
“We call on all Member States to take rational, proportional risk-reduction measures, in keeping with the International Health Regulations,” he said.
– global bihari bureau
