LONDON: A panel of global health experts will meet on Thursday to determine whether COVID-19 remains an emergency under World Health Organisation rules, a status that helps keep international attention on the pandemic.
COVID was given the highest level of alert by the WHO on January 30, 2020, and the panel has continued to use the label ever since, at meetings held every three months.
However, a number of countries, including the United States, have recently begun to lift their domestic states of emergency.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organisation, has stated that he hopes to end the international emergency this year.
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There is no agreement yet on how the panel will rule, according to WHO advisors and external experts.
“The emergency may be over, but it is critical to communicate that COVID remains a complex public health challenge,” said Professor Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virologist on the WHO panel.
She declined to speculate further ahead of the confidential discussions.
According to one source close to the talks, lifting the “public health emergency of international concern,” or PHEIC, label could have an impact on global funding or collaboration efforts.
Another said that the unpredictability of the virus made it hard to call at this stage.
“We are not out of the pandemic but we have reached a different stage,” said Professor Salim Abdool Karim, a leading COVID expert who previously advised the South African government on its response.
Karim, who is not on the WHO panel, said if the emergency status is lifted, governments should still maintain testing, vaccination and treatment programmes.
Others said it was time to move to living with COVID as an on-going health threat, like HIV or tuberculosis.
“All emergencies must come to an end,” said Lawrence Gostin, a law professor at Georgetown University in the United States who follows the WHO.
“I expect WHO to end the public health emergency of international concern. If WHO does not end it… [this time], then certainly the next time the emergency committee meets.”
