Global Covid-19 infections are on a decline after they spiralled during the festive season and last month as the second wave of the pandemic hit many countries forcing them to retreat to lockdowns as part of control measures.
To date over 100 million people across the world have contracted the coronavirus with more than 2,3 million of them having succumbed to the novel disease while over 60,1 million have since recovered from it.
In his member states briefing on Covid-19 Thursday, World Health Organisation (WHO) director-general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said of late there has been a decline in Covid-19 cases across the world.
“We are continuing to see a decline in cases globally, with a 17% drop compared with last week,” said Ghebreyesus.
“This is the fourth week of declining cases. The number of deaths also fell for the second week in a row, with 88 000 new deaths reported last week – a terrible number, but a 10% decline from the previous week. These declines appear to be due to countries implementing public health measures more stringently.”
He was however quick to warn against complacency.
“But remember, we have been here before,” he said.
“Now is not the time to relax measures, or for any of us to let down our guard. Every life that is lost now is all the more tragic as vaccines are now being rolled out. The virus continues to circulate widely, and new variants are emerging.”
He added: “This is not an unexpected development, but it gives a new urgency to our global efforts to bring this pandemic under control.”
Meanwhile, the independent expert team studying the origins of the coronavirus has since completed its trip to China.
“This was an international team comprising experts from Australia, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Qatar, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Viet Nam,” explained Ghebreyesus.
“The team also includes experts from WHO, FAO and OIE. The expert team is still working on its final report and we look forward to receiving both the report and a full briefing. Some questions have been raised as to whether some hypotheses have been discarded.
