The World Health Organization said China remains reluctant to share data essential for the agency to carry out risk assessments of the current state of the pandemic. The agency also said it needs the information so it can adjust its life-saving advice and guidance.
WHO officials have held a series of high-level meetings with their Chinese counterparts in the recent weeks. Despite that, they said they believe China still is under-reporting the true impact of the disease, which is surging in the country.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the pandemic is on the decline. However, he warned that COVID-19 remains a dangerous virus to health, economies, and communities overall.
"We continue to ask China for more rapid, regular, reliable data on hospitalizations and deaths, as well as more comprehensive real time viral sequencing," said the director-general. "WHO is concerned about the risk to life in China and has reiterated the importance of vaccination including booster shots to protect against hospitalization, severe disease, and death.”
The director-general expressed concern about the current COVID-19 epidemiological picture characterized by intense transmission in several parts of the world and the rapid spread of recombinant variants.
WHO COVID-19 technical lead Maria Van Kerkhove said the WHO is worried about a sub-variant of omicron known as XBB.1.5. She said omicron sub-lineage has been detected in 29 countries so far.
“It is the most transmissible sub-variant that has been detected yet," said Van Kerkhove. "The reasons for this are the mutations that are within this recombinant, this sub-variant of omicron, allowing this virus to adhere to the cell and replicate easily. And we are concerned about its growth advantage in particular in some countries in Europe and in the U.S.”
The more this virus circulates, warned Van Kerkhov, the more opportunities it will have to change. Van Kerkhove also said waves of infections are expected to break out around the world. However, she noted they do not have to translate into further waves of death because countermeasures, such as vaccines, continue to work.
