Today, the World Health Organization (WHO) calls on the countries of the world to prepare to respond to an outbreak of a “more deadly” disease than the emerging coronavirus “COVID-19”.
The Director-General of the organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned in a speech he delivered to the World Health Assembly in Geneva, that the end of COVID-19 as a global health emergency does not mean that the global health threat has ended.
"The risk of the emergence of another variable causing new waves of disease and death still exists," Gebresos said at the annual decision-making meeting of the 194 member states of the organization.
He continued, "The threat from another disease that arises, with the possibility of it being more deadly, is still possible."
Tedros's remarks came during the World Health Organization's announcement of the launch of an international network to monitor pathogens, to help identify emerging threats from diseases and respond to them using genomics.
Tedros said at the launch that the network aims to give every country access to pathogen genetic sequencing and analytics as part of its public health system.