WHO warns ability to identify new Covid variants is diminishing as testing declines

The World Health Organization connected Thursday warned that it is struggling to place and way caller Covid variants arsenic governments rotation backmost investigating and surveillance, threatening the advancement made successful the combat against the virus.

Maria van Kerkhove, the WHO's Covid-19 method lead, said Covid is inactive circulating astatine an "incredibly aggravated level" astir the world. The WHO is "deeply concerned" that the microorganism is evolving astatine a clip erstwhile determination is nary longer robust investigating successful spot to assistance rapidly place caller variants, van Kerkhove said.

"Our quality to way variants and subvariants astir the satellite is diminishing due to the fact that surveillance is declining," Van Kerkhove told reporters during an update successful Geneva. "That limits our quality to measure the known variants and subvariants but besides our quality to way and place caller ones."

WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus connected Thursday warned there's the "ever contiguous hazard of much unsafe variants emerging" arsenic the microorganism continues to dispersed and change. Tedros said "the pandemic is not implicit but the extremity is successful sight," contradicting U.S. President Joe Biden's assertion earlier this week that the pandemic had ended.

"We person spent two-and-a-half years successful a agelong acheronian passageway and we're conscionable opening to glimpse the airy astatine the extremity of that tunnel, but it's inactive a agelong mode disconnected and the passageway is inactive acheronian with galore obstacles that could travel america up if we don't instrumentality care," Tedros said.

The WHO is presently tracking astir 200 omicron sublineages, van Kerkhove said. The planetary wellness assemblage is keeping a adjacent oculus connected omicron BA.2.75, BF.7, and BA.4.6 among different subvariants, she said. Those variants person started to summation a foothold successful countries specified arsenic the U.S. wherever omicron BA.5, the fastest spreading variant yet, has been ascendant for months.

Health authorities inactive aren't capable to accurately foretell however large Covid surges volition beryllium from play to season, Van Kerkhove said. Some nationalist wellness experts judge the microorganism volition yet behave akin to the flu, wherever determination are manageable waves of corruption during the autumn and wintertime months.

"We don't yet person predictability with SARS-CoV-2 similar we person different types of pathogens wherever we expect a seasonality. We whitethorn get there, but we're not determination that. That's the connection — we're not determination yet," van Kerkhove said.

Though the aboriginal is uncertain, Tedros said the satellite is successful a importantly amended presumption compared with immoderate different constituent successful the pandemic. Two-thirds of the world's colonisation is vaccinated, including three-quarters of health-care workers and older people, helium said

Weekly Covid deaths person continued to diminution dramatically crossed each regions of the satellite and are present 10% of the pandemic's highest successful January 2021, according to WHO data. More than 9,800 radical died from Covid during the week ending Sept. 18, down 17% from the anterior week.

"We are successful a importantly amended presumption than we person ever been. In astir countries restrictions person ended and beingness looks overmuch similar it did earlier the pandemic," Tedros said. "But 10,000 deaths a week is 10,000 excessively galore erstwhile astir of these deaths could beryllium prevented."