World Health Organization chief says that the body is likely to lift the emergency status of Covid-19 this year

The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Thursday that the organization is likely to lift the emergency status of Covid-19 sometime in 2022. Despite being more than three years into the pandemic, WHO still regards Covid-19 as a public health emergency, which has claimed millions of lives across the world.

Tedros stated, ‘I think we will be able to lift it this year.’ The expert committee responsible for deciding on the status of the pandemic is scheduled to meet in May. Meanwhile, Tedros demanded that China should immediately share all relevant information regarding the origins of Covid-19, as he believes that China had far more data that could shed light on the emergence of the virus.

Without access to the complete data, Tedros insisted that ‘we will never know what happened or how it started.’ Covid-19 started to spread in Wuhan towards the end of 2019 and has since spread globally, with no clear explanation of its origins.

In the United States, different agencies and experts have had conflicting opinions on the matter. Some believe that the virus naturally jumped from animals to humans, while others claim that it leaked from a Wuhan laboratory. China has denied all such claims. Recently, researchers revealed new evidence regarding raccoon dogs that were found at a market in Wuhan when the disease was first detected in humans, known to carry and transmit viruses similar to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

In India, Covid-19 is experiencing a resurgence, with daily cases and the positivity rate increasing, attributed to the XBB1.16 variant. A few BA.2.10 and BA.2.75 sublineage cases have also emerged in certain parts of the country. The latest INSACOG bulletin reported that XBB.1.16 accounts for 38.2% of infections to date.