By Sola Ogundipe
The World Health Organisation, WHO, has warned that the world should prepare for a more deadly virus than the coronavirus, even as it stated that the COVID-19 pandemic is serving as a wake-up call.
The Head of the WHO emergencies programme, Dr Mike Ryan, who disclosed this on Wednesday, said although the COVID-19 pandemic has been very severe, it was not yet the big one.
Ryan who spoke in a press conference, noted: “This is a wake-up call. We are learning, now, how to do things better: science, logistics, training and governance, how to communicate better. But the planet is fragile.
“We live in an increasingly complex global society. These threats will continue. If there is one thing we need to take from this pandemic, with all of the tragedy and loss, is that we need to get our act together. We need to honour those we’ve lost by getting better at what we do every day.
“This pandemic has been very severe; it has affected every corner of this planet. But this is not necessarily the big one,” he stated.
The COVID-19 pandemic has so far sickened 82.6 million persons worldwide out of which 1.8 million have died.
Millions of doses of the three effective vaccines that have been approved for preventing the infection are currently being distributed and administered in the US and Europe, while Africa and the rest of the world await supplies in the new year.