Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

 WHO Warns of New Setbacks in Fighting Coronavirus in 2021  


Tue 29 Dec 2020 | 04:56 PM
Ahmed Moamar

Director-General of the World Health  Organization (WHO), Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that this year has witnessed many complicated events, most notably the new vaccines against the Coronavirus.

Dr. Ghebreyesus added that there will be new setbacks and challenges in the coming year, for example, New strains of COVID-19, and helping people who are tired of the pandemic to continue fighting it."

This came during a global health report issued this week which marks the first anniversary since the WHO  learned of "cases of idiopathic pneumonia", through a bulletin issued by the health authorities in Wuhan Province, China.

Dr. Ghebreyesus stressed that WHO from the beginning has established a commission to follow up on COVID-19, and has worked tirelessly with partners to support all countries in responding to the deadly virus.

Ghebreyesus said that the experts of the organization are working closely with scientists around the world to understand which changes - and all the changes - that occur to the COVID-19 virus, and how these changes affect its ability to spread or infect people with the disease.

He shed light on the most important milestones in the fight against the virus throughout the year 2020.

He added if we go back to the beginning of 2020, WHO published the first comprehensive package of guidance documents for countries on January 10, which covers topics related to managing a new disease outbreak," and the following day, the organization received the complete genetic sequence of the Coronavirus from China.

By January 13, WHO had published its first protocols for a diagnostic test by a partner laboratory in Germany to detect the virus.

He said: “At the end of that month, January 30, WHO declared a health emergency of global concern, the highest alert level under the global health law.”

By the beginning of February 2020, WHO was shipping diagnostic tests around the world, so that countries can detect and respond effectively to infections.