WHO COVID-19 Emergency Committee to meet in 90 days - WHO chief

  02 May 2020    Read: 1240
WHO COVID-19 Emergency Committee to meet in 90 days - WHO chief

The next meeting of the World Health Organizations’ (WHO) COVID-19 Emergency Committee will be held in 90 days, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday, TASS reports.

"In accordance with the International Health Regulations, I will reconvene the COVID19 Emergency Committee again in 90 days, or sooner if needed," he said.

The COVID-19 Emergency Committee that consists of 18 experts and 13 consultants held a videoconference meeting on April 30. After the meeting, the WHO chief said that the committee "unanimously agreed that the outbreak still constitutes a public health emergency of international concern." The emergency regime has been in force since January 30.

"We accept the committee’s advice that WHO works to identify the animal source of the coronavirus through international scientific and collaborative missions, in collaboration with the OIEAnimalHealth and the FAO of the UN," the WHO chief said. "As we have done clearly from the beginning, we will continue to call on countries to implement a comprehensive package of measures to find, isolate, test and treat every case, and trace every contact."

"We will continue supporting countries to sustain essential health services, including vaccination, care for women during pregnancy and childbirth, and care for non-communicable diseases, including mental health conditions," he pledged.

In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 3.2 million people have been infected worldwide and more than 230,000 deaths have been reported.


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