Is it true that WHO announced the end of the Pandemia of Coronavirus?

On Friday, May 5, the news dispersed widely that WHO declared the Pandemia of Coronavirus ending. We checked the correctness of such a statement.

That canceled status Pandemia for coronavirus infection, Wrote many Media: "Kommersant"(" WHO canceled the status of pandemia Covid-19 "), RBC ("WHO announced the end of the Pandemia of Coronavirus"), "Moscow Komsomolets"(" Covid-19 Pandemia "),"Vesti.ru"(" Pandemia ended "),"Fontanka"(" WHO: Pandemia Covid-19 is no more "), The Insider ("WHO announced the completion of the Pandemia of Coronavirus").

Pandemic (from the Greek. - “all the people”) is an unusually strong epidemic that spread in countries, continents; The highest degree of development of the epidemic process. To classify various emergency situations in the field of healthcare, WHO uses international medical and sanitary rules. The first version of such rules appeared Back in 1951. From time to time, this document was revised and supplemented. In 2010, the definition of pandemia was Used To indicate the flash of the influenza H1N1. Then WHO notedthat “pandemic is the spread of a new disease on a global scale” and indicated important criteria of pandemia (“the new virus spreads around the world”, “leads to several simultaneous epidemics around the world with a huge number of deaths and diseases”, “most people do not have immunity to it”), and also added that “viruses that caused former pandemias usually took place From animal viruses. "

However, the decision to name the flash of the flu H1N1 pandemia subjected public Criticism For the creation of a panic, guided by which many countries purchased vaccines in volumes much exceeding the real need. The largest public discussion was caused by the information posted on the official website that the flash of the H1N1 flu is a pandemic that is characterized by a huge number of dead and sick. After a wave of criticism, the WHO spokesman Natalie will report that the definition was recognized as erroneous and removed from the website of the department.

Now instead of the term "pandemia" Uses Another terminology is “the situation of threat to public health at the international level” (Public Health Emergency of International Concern, Pheic). Threats may have minimal consequences (1st grade), moderate (2nd) or significant (3rd). Threat situations Given The following definition: “an extraordinary event defined as a risk to public health in other states as a result of the international spread of the disease and can require coordinated international response measures.” PHEIC status today has been assigned to seven outbreaks of diseases: pork flu H1N1 (2009), polio (2014), Ebola hemorrhagic fever (2014), Zika's fever (2015–2016), Ebola hemorrhagic fever (2018–2020), coronavirus infection (end of 2019) and Osppege monkeys (2022th).

In the actual editors There is no international medical and sanitary rules (adopted in 2005) of the Pandemia term at all, as well as its criteria or procedure for declaring a particular pandemic infection. Therefore, neither the introduction nor cancel the Pandemia of WHO in general could not. Instead, at the 15th meeting of the Emergency Committee regarding the Covid-19 Pandemia CEN reportedthat “Covid-19 is currently a well-established and constant problem of healthcare, and not an emergency situation in the field of public healthcare, representing international significance (PHEIC).” In the news about this meeting of the committee on the official website of the organization and the published materials of the meeting, the word “pandemia” in relation to the infection caused by the SARS-COV-2 virus is mentioned. For example, in such revolutions as "the time has come to go to the long-term treatment of Covid-19 pandemia or" it is extremely important to eliminate the gaps identified during the pandemic. " That is, the heads of the organization and members of the committee continue to consider the coronavirus infection with pandemia. Separately, on the WHO website, the introductory word of the Director General of the WHO at a briefing for the media was published. In it, Tedros Gebreisus speaks About the abolition of PHEIC: 

“This does not mean that the Covid-19 ended as a global threat to health. Last week, the Covid-19 took people's lives every three minutes-and these are only those deaths that we know about. While we are now talking, thousands of people around the world are fighting in their lives in intensive care units. And millions continue to live with the exhausting consequences of the disease after the Covid-19. <...> The worst that any country can do now is to use this news as a reason to weaken vigilance, to dismantle the systems that it built, or send a message to your people that Covid-19 no longer should be worried. This news only means that it is time to move from the countries from the emergency regime to the fight against the Covid-19 along with other infectious diseases. ”

WHO, apparently, well understands that in society there may be a misunderstanding, what is PHEIC and what is a pandemic. Therefore, on February 26, 2023, she released a video about this difference. WHO expert and head of the technical group of emergency units, Maria Van Kerkhova, explains: 

“An emergency situation in the field of public healthcare (PHEIC) is defined as an emergency that presents a risk for public health in other states due to the spread of the disease at the international level and potentially requires coordinated international response actions. This definition implies that the situation is serious, sudden, unusual, unexpected that it has consequences for public healthcare outside the national borders of the affected states and may require immediate international actions. Pandemia is a little different. Pandemia usually occurs when a new virus affects the population of the world. It is very difficult to determine when the new virus becomes pandemia. The idea of ​​the announcement of Pheic, the highest level of anxiety of WHO in accordance with international medical and sanitary rules, consists in coordinating immediate actions before the event becomes even larger and potentially develops into a pandemic. In the situation with Covid-19, we are in both Pheic and in the pandemic. And although we heard how the general director spoke about the ability of the world to unite and put an end to Pheic in 2023, we can still be in the conditions of the pandemic for quite a long time, because this virus remains with us, which means we must take suspended measures. We must improve all our systems in order to be able to reduce the effect of the Covid-19 as we move forward. We will responsibly live with this virus in the foreseeable future, which means that we need to save as many lives as possible and protect as many people as possible right now, using the current tools now. ”

That is, the organization’s experts at least in February understood the need for educational work to clarify the difference between an emergency international scale in the field of public health and pandemia, suggesting that when the PHEIC cancel it, people can be misleading and deciding that the pandemic is over, which, in fact, happened. Moreover, formally, the WHO, in principle, does not have any protocol introducing or canceling the pandemic.

Image on the cover: Image by Jeyaratnam Canaceus from Pixabay

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