Sooner or later, humanity will face a new pandemic, which will turn out to be more dangerous than the current one. RIA Novosti quoted Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), as saying.
«There will be another virus that will be more infectious and deadly than this one,» he said WHO at the opening of the 74th session.
According to the head of the organization, it is the fight against viruses that shows that states should cooperate with each other, and not compete.
As UN News reports, the UN Secretary General António Guterres called the COVID-19 pandemic a «tsunami of suffering» that claimed more than 3.4 million lives. At least 500 million jobs have been lost. Economic losses are estimated at millions of dollars. Despite the emergence of vaccines in record time, the poorest countries still cannot use the benefits of this unprecedented breakthrough in science. About 82 percent of all vaccines’ doses produced went to rich countries.
«Unfortunately, if we don’t do anything now, we will find ourselves in a situation where rich countries will vaccinate most of their own population and their economies will work at full strength, and the virus will circulate and mutate in the poorest countries, causing untold suffering. New outbreaks and waves could claim hundreds of thousands of lives and slow down recovery of the global economy,» he said.
The World Health Assembly is taking place from May 24 to June 1 online. Its main topic is the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and prevention of new global health emergencies. Delegations from all over the world take part in the work of the assembly.
