The World Health Organization (WHO) is currently tracking several COVID-19 “variants of interest”, including EG.5 which it says is on the rise in several countries, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced in Geneva on Wednesday.
“The risk remains of a more dangerous variant emerging that could cause a sudden increase in cases and deaths,” he said.
According to WHO’s initial risk evaluation, EG.5 is a sublineage of the omicron variant and has been detected in 51 countries, including the United States, China, South Korea and Japan.
While Tedros indicated that overall risk is low, “based on its genetic features, immune escape characteristics, and growth rate estimates, EG.5 may spread globally and contribute to a surge in case incidence.”
Tedros recalled that three months have passed since he declared the end of COVID-19 as a global health emergency, though at the time he cautioned that it remains a threat. Since then, the number of reported cases, hospitalizations and deaths globally has continued to decline.
Meanwhile, the number of countries reporting data to WHO also significantly declined. In the past month, only 25 per cent reported their COVID-19 deaths and only 11 per cent reported their hospitalizations and intensive care unit admissions.
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Tedros said the risk of severe disease and death is vastly lower than it was a year ago, due to increasing population immunity – whether from vaccination, infection or both – and from early diagnosis with better clinical care.
“Despite these improvements, WHO continues to assess the risk of COVID-19 to global public health as high. The virus continues to circulate in all countries, it continues to kill and it continues to change,” he cautioned.
Nearly seven million people have reportedly died from COVID-19, and there have been more than 769 million confirmed cases worldwide.
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