Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

WHO Warns of New Coronavirus Wave to Hit Eastern Mediterranean


Thu 10 Sep 2020 | 09:35 PM
Ahmed Moamar

The World Health Organization's (WHO) Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean region Ahmed bin Salem Al-Mandhari announced that the region has reached another important stage, as the number of cases of COVID-19 has exceeded two million.

Al-Mandhari continued to say that the organization is monitoring developments which remind the world once again that we must remain fully vigilant while dealing with this virus. There are many countries succeeded in controlling the transmission of the disease a few months ago.

Those countries include Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan and Lebanon, but they are now witnessing an acceleration in the rate of emergence of cases.

Al-Mandhari added that other countries are witnessing increasing trends such as Libya, the Palestinian Territories, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates(UAE).

The Regional Director linked the increase in infection to social gatherings and population movement, the resumption of international travel, and the continued decline in the levels of the use of masks.

The re-emergence of cases throughout the region may become, to some degree, not a matter.

The challenge for all of this region is to ease these measures in a manner and pace that reduces the public health threat.

The regional representative of the WHO stressed that it is now more important than ever to protect those who have not yet been infected, especially the most vulnerable.

The Director pointed out that in some countries, such as Iraq and Morocco, hospitals are already overburdened, and intensive care units have reached their maximum capacity, which may expose those who need life-saving medical services to dire consequences.

He revealed that the influenza season is also about to start in many countries of the region, which may lead to a new peak and an increase in suspected cases of the disease.

To reduce the risk of disease transmission in the coming weeks and months, inpiduals and societies must continue implementing known prevention measures.

The WHO official urged governments to take strict measures especially in some places such as schools and places of social gathering and other public events.

On the other hand, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanum Ghebreyesus, called on the countries of the world to prepare for the next wave of the Coronavirus (COVID-19).

Ghebreyesus stressed the need for the international community to be more prepared to cope with the coming threats.

This pandemic will not be the last. "History teaches us that disease outbreaks and pandemics are really a fact of life," Ghebreyesus said, in a press briefing in Geneva today.

Ghebreyesus added that at the beginning of the next pandemic, the world must be more prepared than it was this time.

He renewed his call to the governments of all countries of the world to invest more in the public health sector.

Since January 2020, the world has been facing an acute crisis caused by the outbreak of the new Coronavirus "COVID-19", which began to spread from the Chinese city of Wuhan.

The deadly virus led to huge losses in many sectors of the economy, especially transport, tourism and entertainment, the collapse of global stock exchanges and the acceleration of the decline in markets of energy.

The WHO classified this outbreak as a pandemic on March 11, and the virus has so far infected about 27 million people around the world, killing about 890,000 people.

The United Nation (UN) has issued a report draws a dreadful image of the world economy after the outbreak of disease.

The report warns of precedent rates of unemployment and poverty in the world during the period to come as an expected fallout of the Coronavirus which threatens the planet now.

The deadly virus ( known also as the COVID-19) has infected more than three million people in the world until now.

The UN report indicated that about 195 million persons will lose jobs due to the Coronavirus.