“We continue to demand more from China fast, regular, reliable data about hospitalizations and deaths, as well more comprehensive real-time viral sequencing,” he said I speak from Geneva.
WHO Is concerned about the risk of death in the world’s most populous country and reiterates the importance of increasing vaccination coverage, including booster doses, especially for vulnerable groups such as the elderly.
Comprehensive data required
“Given the high circulation in China and the lack of comprehensive data – as I said last week, it is understandable that some countries are taking steps that they think they will protect their own citizens‘ added Tedros.
A number of countries, including the United States starting tomorrow, have announced new COVID testing requirements for travelers from China to enter the country amid concerns about the spread of the latest variants.
Later in the briefing, Dr. Mike Ryan, WHO’s director of emergencies, also stressed the need for more information from the Chinese authorities.
“We know that in all countries there are very often difficulties in recording hospital discharges, admissions and use of ICU facilities,” he said.
“We believe that the latest figures from China will be published underrepresents the true impact of the disease in terms of hospital admissions, in terms of ICU admissions and particularly in terms of deaths.”
Meeting with experts
The WHO held high-level meetings with Chinese authorities over the past week to discuss the rise in cases and hospitalizations.
Also the Technical Advisory Group on Virus Evolution (TAG-VE). met on Tuesday with Chinese experts to discuss the situation.
During that meeting, scientists from the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention presented data on what they described as imported and locally acquired Coronavirus infections.
The analysis showed that most of the viruses circulating in the country originate from two Omicron lineages, BA.5.2 and BF.7, which accounted for 97.5 percent of all local infections, as well as some other known Omicron sublineages.
“These variants are known and circulating in other countries, and at this time no new variant has been reported by the China CDC,” the TAG-VE said in a statement on Wednesday.
So far, 773 sequences from mainland China have been submitted to the virus database of the global science initiative GISAID.
Most, 564, were collected after December 1st. Of that number, only 95 are flagged as locally acquired cases, while 187 are imported and 261 “did not provide this information”.
The majority of locally acquired cases, 95 percent, belong to the two Omicron lineages.
“This is consistent with genomes from travelers from China submitted to the GISAID-EpiCoV database from other countries. No new variant or mutation of known importance is identified in the publicly available sequence data,” the statement said.
Vulnerable communities in Paraguay are vaccinated against COVID-19 and influenza.
There is still a risk of a pandemic
At the beginning of the briefing, Tedros noted that the pandemic is now in its fourth year and despite progress, it still poses a threat to health, the economy and society.
“We are genuinely concerned about the current epidemiological picture of COVID-19, both of them intense transmission in several parts of the world and a recombinant subvariant is spreading rapidly,” he said.
COVID-19 has been on the wane for most of 2021, Tedros reported, citing factors such as the global surge in vaccination and the identification of new life-saving antiviral drugs.
10,000 deaths a week
However, major inequalities remain in access to testing, treatment and vaccination.
“Every week about 10,000 people that we know of die from COVID-19. The true toll is probably much higher,” he said.
In addition, the Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 is on the rise in the United States and Europe and has been identified in nearly 30 countries.
XBB.1.5 was first discovered in October 2022. according to dr Maria Van Kherkove, the WHO’s technical lead for COVID-19, it is the most transmissible subvariant to date.
Keep monitoring
“We expect more waves of infections around the world, but that doesn’t have to lead to more waves of deaths because our countermeasures continue to work,” she said.
Meanwhile, the TAG-VE experts are also working on a corresponding risk assessment, which should be published in the coming days.
dr Van Kherkove stressed the importance of continuous COVID-19 surveillance around the world to track known subvariants that are circulating.
More than 13 million cases of the disease were reported last month, although the WHO believes the number is higher.
“But even more worryingly, we had 15 percent more deaths last month and again, we know that that’s an underestimate as there are delays in reporting and with the holiday season and mingling these trends are expected to continue,” said Dr. VanKherkove.
Uganda Ebola Progress
In his remarks, Tedros expressed hope that the pandemic will be defeated in 2023.
“COVID-19 will no doubt still be a big topic of discussion, but I believe and hope so with the right efforts This will be the year when the public health emergency officially ends,” he said
He also pointed to good news from Uganda, which has been struggling with one Ebola outbreak since September.
No cases have been detected since November 27 and if this continues, the outbreak will be declared over shortly.
The WHO will also celebrate its 75th anniversary this year, and Tedros said more details would be announced in the coming weeks.
