The World Health Organisation has said that COVID-19 continues to constitute a public health emergency of international concern, its highest form of alert.
The WHO also acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic is probably at a transition point.
In a press statement issued on Monday after the 14th meeting of the International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, held on January 27.
The committee agreed that COVID-19 remains a dangerous infectious disease with the capacity to cause substantial damage to health and health systems.
The WHO temporarily recommended that states parties maintain momentum for COVID-19 vaccination to achieve 100 per cent coverage of high-priority groups.
“States Parties should plan for integration of COVID-19 vaccination into part of life-course immunisation programmes. Regular data collection and reporting on vaccine coverage should include both primary and booster doses.
“Improve reporting of SARS-CoV-2 surveillance data to WHO. Better data are needed to: detect, assess, and monitor emerging variants; identify significant changes to COVID-19 epidemiology; and understand the burden of COVID-19 in all regions.
“States Parties are recommended to use an integrated approach to respiratory infectious disease surveillance that leverages the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response system.
“Surveillance should incorporate information from representative sentinel populations, event-based surveillance, human wastewater surveillance, sero-surveillance, and animal-human-environmental surveillance,” it added.
So far, over 13 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered, with 89 per cent of health workers and 81 per cent of older adults (over 60 years) having completed the primary series.