The Emergency Committee of the World Health Organization stated today, Tuesday, that the COVID-19 pandemic "has not ended yet," urging countries to recognize all vaccines approved by the agency. The COVID-19 Emergency Committee, led by Frenchman Didier Hossain, meets every three months to assess the epidemiological situation. After its most recent meeting last week, it issued a statement on Tuesday confirming that "while progress has been made through increased use of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, the analysis of the current situation and predictive modeling indicates that the pandemic has not ended yet."
This is the same committee that advised the Director-General of the World Health Organization to declare a public health emergency of international concern during its second meeting on January 30, 2020, which is the highest level of alert for a pandemic, which he did.
In its Tuesday statement, the committee decided last week "unanimously that the pandemic still constitutes an extraordinary event that harms the health of the global population and poses a threat of continued worldwide outbreak and impacts on mobility and requires a coordinated international response." In its recommendations to countries, the committee continues to oppose the principle of vaccination proof for international travel due to the uneven distribution of vaccines worldwide. It also called on countries to "recognize all vaccines that have received emergency use authorization" from the WHO.
So far, the WHO has approved vaccines from Moderna, Pfizer, Sinopharm, Sinovac, and Johnson & Johnson, as well as different versions of the AstraZeneca vaccine. A decision is expected soon regarding the Covaxin vaccine developed by the Indian company Bharat Biotech.
