World

COVID-19 caused over 4 million deaths worldwide – WHO

Health workers cry during a memorial for their co-worker Esteban, a male nurse that died of the coronavirus disease, at the Severo Ochoa Hospital in Leganes in Leganes, Spain, Friday, April 10, 2020. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

The World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared on Wednesday that COVID-19 deaths have attained four million, “which likely underestimates the overall toll.” He denounced the “shocking inequity in vaccination” and warned that “far too many countries in every region of the world are seeing sharp spikes in cases and hospitalization.”

“Vaccine nationalism, where a handful of nations have taken the lion’s share, is morally indefensible and an ineffective public health strategy against a respiratory virus that is mutating quickly and becoming increasingly effective at moving from human to human,” he stressed. He requested for “the necessary funding to scale up the equitable manufacturing and distribution of health tools” so that 10% of people in all countries can be vaccinated by September, rising to 40% by the end of the year.