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Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus gave a strong defense on Friday of his “timely” actions and those of the World Health Organization (WHO) by declaring the new coronavirus an international health emergency in late January.
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The January 30 statement was made “in time for the rest of the world to respond” because at the time there were only 82 cases of infection and no deaths outside of China, Tedros said in a virtual press conference at the headquarters of the WHO in Geneva.
Tedros said the WHO, which seeks to lead the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, had used the days before declaring the global emergency as the time to visit China to learn more about the new virus.
During that visit, they also won an “innovative agreement” with China to send researchers, Tedros said.
Tedros, who was asked about relations with the United States, its largest donor who suspended funding after criticizing WHO’s handling of the pandemic, said: “We are actually in constant contact and working together.”
Confirming that the COVID-19 pandemic remains clearly a global health emergency, Tedros said he had “serious concerns about the potential impact” of the disease “as it begins to accelerate in countries with weaker health systems.”
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WHO emergency chief Mike Ryan said the agency was seeing troubling increases in COVID-19 cases in Haiti, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and northern Nigeria .
Ryan also said that while the WHO recognized that some countries are beginning to consider reducing blocking measures, it was important for them to be “constantly on the lookout for a jump in infections” and to be ready to re-implement some measures if it is necessary .
Tedros said the WHO “will continue to work with countries and partners to enable essential travel necessary for a pandemic response, humanitarian aid and cargo operations, and for countries to gradually resume normal passenger travel.”
“As we have clearly done from the beginning, we will continue to ask countries to implement a comprehensive package of measures to find, isolate, test, and treat every case and track every contact,” he said.
