The world has to start preparing for a disease even deadlier than Covid-19, World Health Organization (WHO) director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned.
Tedros on 23 May told the 76th World Health Assembly, the UN agency’s decision-making body in Geneva, that it was time to advance negotiations on preventing the next pandemic, media reports said.
“We cannot kick this can down the road,” he said, warning that the next pandemic was bound to “come knocking” “If we do not make the changes that must be made, then who will? And if we do not make them now, then when?” he added.
According to another report by the Daily Mail, WHO has identified nine priority diseases that pose the biggest risk to public health.
The 10-day annual World Health Assembly in Geneva, which coincides with the WHO’s 75th anniversary, is set to address global health challenges including future pandemics, eradicating polio and supporting steps to ease Ukraine’s health emergency triggered by Russia’s invasion.
The WHO has earlier declared that Covid-19 was no longer a so-called Public Health Emergency of International Concern, but at the same time warned that the outbreak was far from over.
