Geneva, Switzerland
The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that the coronavirus will not be the last pandemic and recalled that health progress will result insufficient if there are no changes in global warming and animal welfare.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned of “the danger of short-term behavior”, recorded in a video message for the Sunday commemoration of the first International Day of Preparedness for Epidemics.
“History tells us that it will not be the last pandemic,” he said, insisting that good lessons should be learned from the coronavirus pandemic.
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For a long time, the world was in the midst of a cycle of panic and denial, he said.
“We spend money when the crisis breaks out, but when it is over, we forget and do nothing to prevent the next one. It is the danger of short-term behavior,” complained the director-general of this UN agency.
The first annual report on global preparedness for health emergencies, published in September 2019, already warned of humanity’s poor preparation for major pandemics a few months before the COVID-19 crisis began.
“The pandemic revealed the close links between human, animal and planet health,” he said.
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“Any efforts to improve health systems will be insufficient if not accompanied by criticism of the relationship between humans and animals, and of the existential threat posed by climate change, which is making Earth a better place. Difficult to live.”
The new coronavirus caused at least 1.75 million deaths and infected 80 million people in the world after the first cases were discovered in China in December 2019, according to the census carried out by AFP based on official data.