The WHO warns of the emergence of a new variant of COVID-19 that could be worrying

The World Health Organization (WHO) It estimated on Friday that 90% of the world’s population currently enjoys some immunity to covid-19, although it warned of the threat of a new variant.

“The WHO estimates that at least 90% of the world population now has some level of immunity to SARS-CoV-2 due to previous infection or vaccination,” said the director general of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesusreferring to the virus that causes the disease covid-19.

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“We are much closer to being able to say that the emergency phase of the pandemic is over, but we are not there yet,” added in a press conference.

Tedros warned that the reduction in contagion surveillance is opening the door to a new variant of the viruswhich can overcome the dominant omicron.

“The gaps in surveillance, in testing, in sequencing and in vaccination continue to create the perfect conditions for a worrying new variant that could cause significant mortality.” warned.

tedros recalled that last weekend it was one year since the WHO reported a new, more contagious variant, that of omicron.

There are currently more than 500 sub-variants of omicron and all are highly transmissible. They also have mutations that allow them to more easily escape immunity, Tedros recalled.

The countries have communicated to the WHO 6.6 million deaths from covid-19. Almost 640 million infections have also been registered.

The UN health agency insists that the data does not reflect the true number of victims.

Last week there were more than 8,500 deaths from covid-19, Tedros recalled. A figure that “is not acceptable” after three years of the pandemic, when “we already have so many tools to prevent infections and save lives.”

Source: Elcomercio

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I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.