The World Health organization (WHO) estimated that 9% of the world population now had some resistance to Covid-19, but warned that a troubling new variant could still emerge. "WHO estimates that at least 90 percent of the world's population now has some level of immunity to SARS-CoV-2, due to prior infection or vaccination," said Tedros, referring to the virus that causes Covid-19 disease.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said gaps in vigilance were leaving the door open for a new virus variant to appear and overtake the globally dominant Omicron. "We are much closer to being able to say that the emergency phase of the pandemic is over -- but we're not there yet," he said. “Gaps in surveillance, testing, sequencing and vaccination are continuing to create the perfect conditions for a new variant of concern to emerge that could cause significant mortality," he added.
Last weekend marked one year since the WHO announced Omicron as a new variant of concern in the Covid-19 pandemic. It has since swept round the world, proving significantly more transmissible than its predecessor, Delta.
Tedros said there were now more than 500 highly transmissible Omicron sub-lineages circulating -- all able to get around built-up immunity more easily, even if they tended to be less severe than previous variants.