World has reached 4 million deaths from COVID-19 and WHO warns pandemic is at a dangerous point

The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, regretted this Wednesday the “tragic figure” of 4 million dead in the COVID-19 pandemic reached today and demanded that vaccines reach the world to stop the disease once and for all.

“Vaccines are a silver lining, but most of the world is left in the dark. The virus progresses faster than inoculations, ”Guterres said in a statement.

“Without a doubt, much remains to be done to eradicate this pandemic; more than half of its victims have died this year», He underlined.

In this sense, the head of the United Nations recalled that “several million more are in danger if we allow the virus to spread uncontrollably”, because “The more it spreads, the more variations we will see.”

“Variants that will be more contagious, more deadly and more likely to elude the effectiveness of vaccines that we currently have, ”he insisted.

According to Guterres, what is needed now is to end the differences in the distribution of vaccines and, for that, we must “The largest global public health effort in history.”

This “global vaccination plan” that the UN has repeatedly called for consists, among other things, in at least doubling production and ensuring equitable distribution via Covax., the platform promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO).

“For this plan to materialize, I ask that an emergency working group be created with the participation of all countries that have the capacity to produce vaccines, as well as the World Health Organization, the Alliance Gavi, international financial institutions that can deal with pharmaceuticals and manufacturers, and other important stakeholdersGuterres pointed out.

According to the UN, “Equity in access to vaccines is the greatest immediate moral test of our time” and, at the same time, a “practical necessity”, since “Until we are all vaccinated, we will all be in danger. “

“For a global recovery, immunization must also be global. The tragic loss of four million people as a result of this pandemic should push us to act urgently to put an end to it for the good of all, in the four corners of the world, ”he insisted.

On the other hand, World Health Organization (WHO) director of health emergencies Mike Ryan called on governments around the world to “be very careful” in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic, “that they do not lose the profits they have made and that they reopen very carefully.”

In particular on the situation in Europe, the expert from the international health organization hopes that “hospitals will no longer be overwhelmed”. “But it’s not something we can take for granted”Ryan said at a press conference on Wednesday from WHO headquarters in Geneva (Switzerland).

Thus, he urged “to act with extreme caution when lifting all restrictions, because there will be consequences”. “All countries are taking steps to lift the restrictions. Be careful and also be prepared to back up if necessary“, He said.

For his part, the director general of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned that the COVID-19 pandemic “You are at a dangerous point” in the world, when the 4 million official deaths have been exceeded.

“The world is at a dangerous point in this pandemic. We have just passed the tragic milestone of 4 million deaths from COVID-19, which probably underestimates the total number of victims.“, he underlined.

Tedros denounced that due to the rapid development of variants and the “scandalous inequality“On immunization, too many countries in all regions of the world “They are experiencing a sharp increase in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations”. “This leads to a acute shortage of oxygen and treatments, and this is causing a wave of deaths in parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America, ”he said.

On the other hand, regarding vaccine “nationalism”, in which “a handful of countries took their share of the pie,” the director of the United Nations international health organization called it “morally indefensible and an ineffective public health strategy against a rapidly mutating respiratory virus that is increasingly effective in passing from person to person”.

“At this point in the COVID-19 pandemic, the fact that millions of healthcare professionals and healthcare workers have yet to be vaccinated is abhorrent. Variants are winning the vaccine race due to uneven vaccine production and distribution, which also threatens the global economic recovery. It was not to be and it should not be in the future. From a moral, epidemiological or economic point of view, the time has come for the world to come together to fight collectively against this pandemic, ”he said.

Tedros recalled that this week the finance ministers and central bank governors of the G20 will meet. “This is another opportunity for leaders to take urgent action to end the acute phase of this pandemic by providing the money needed to scale up the equitable manufacture and distribution of health tools.“, he underlined.

WHO targets are for 10% of people in all countries to be vaccinated by September and that number to rise to 40% by the end of 2021. “This would put the world on the path to immunizing 70% of the population of all countries by mid-2022,” he said.

“I call on G20 finance ministers and other leaders to support these goals as it is the fastest way to end the acute phase of the pandemic, save lives and livelihoods and drive a real global economic recovery. We are making scientific breakthroughs in global trials, but the impact is limited if we don’t share them fairly. This is not charity, it is the best way to end the acute phase of this pandemic, to stop the variants of the virus and to promote a global economic recovery, “he insisted.

The toll of 4 million dead from COVID-19 was officially reached on Wednesday, according to WHO data, with the United States (600,000), Brazil (525,000), India (433,000), Mexico (233,000) and Peru (193,000) as the most affected countries.

(With information from EFE and Europa Press)

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