THE World Health Organization (WHO) has maintained its declaration of a global public health emergency, its highest level of alarm, over the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in a press briefing in Geneva, Switzerland on May 1, said the Emergency Committee that he convened three months ago has advised that the Covid-19 outbreak still constitutes a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC).
Tedros also reiterated WHO's call on countries to implement a comprehensive package of measures to "find, isolate, test and treat every case, and trace every contact."
"We will continue working with countries and partners to enable essential travel needed for pandemic response, humanitarian relief and cargo operations, and for countries to gradually resume normal passenger travel," he added.
Tedros also said the WHO has accepted the committee's advice to identify the animal source of the novel coronavirus, or Sars-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19.
This will be done through international scientific and collaborative measures in collaboration with the World Organization for Animal Health and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
The WHO first declared the outbreak a PHEIC on January 30, 2020, when cases in China were still less than 8,000 and deaths were less than 200.
The novel coronavirus, or Sars-CoV-2, was first detected in Wuhan City in Hubei province in central China in December 2019.
The outbreak was declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020.
As of May 1, the WHO said cases of infection have increased to more than 3.17 million in over 200 countries, with two more states reporteing their first cases in the last 24 hours.
A total of 224,172 individuals had died from the disease as of May 1, the WHO added.
The Emergency Committee will be reconvened within the next three months or earlier, for another review of the pandemic. (MVI/VoxPop Philippines)