Rajeev Choudhury

While high prices keep COVID treatment out of reach of the poor people across the globe, the manufacturers continue to make record profits, the Director-General of the World Health Organisation, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus remarked while addressing the media during a press briefing in Geneva on May 4, 2022.

Stressing that the WHO supports fair reward for innovation and describing the high prices of the lifesaving drugs as ‘moral failure’, Dr Tedros said, “we cannot accept prices that make life-saving treatments available to the rich and out of reach for the poor.”

Welcoming the recent trends of continued decline in the report of weekly new infections and death at their lowest since March 2020, the WHO DG cautioned that this is not the full story.

Noting that the Omicron sub-variants are still driving up cases across the Americas and Africa, Dr Tedros said, “It is too soon to know whether these new sub-variants can cause more severe disease than other Omicron sub-variants, but early data suggest vaccination remains protective against severe disease and death.”

Stressing that the identification of the Omicron sub-variants BA.4 and BA.5 by the scientists of South Africa, a reminder that the pandemic is not over yet, the WHO DG urged the countries not to let their guard down and continue with the vigilance and surveillance against the virus.

“The BA.4 and BA.5 sub-variants were identified because South Africa is still doing the vital genetic sequencing that many other countries have stopped doing; in many countries, we are essentially blind to how the virus is mutating,” Dr Tedros said.