World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom stated on Tuesday during his COVID-19 media briefing that, in spite of a global decline in cases and deaths, the pandemic is a long way from over.
Dr. Tedros expressed deep concerns about the current coronavirus outbreak in North Korea, whose mostly unvaccinated population has more than 1.4 million suspected cases. He requested that Pyongyang shares data and information about the number of infections, and offered to provide a package of supplies including tests, medicines, and vaccines.
During the briefing, WHO Emergencies Director Mike Ryan expressed his worries about countries not using the available tools to combat the pandemic and concluded by saying that "WHO has repeatedly said that where you have unchecked transmission, there is always a higher risk of new variants emerging."
