World Health Organization: Without adherence to principles, this pandemic will only get worse and worse
The Director-General of the World Health Organization has warned of the "wrong path" in the process of combating the Covid-19 pandemic in "many countries", warning of the situation getting worse.
"Let me be frank; many countries are on the wrong track. The [coronavirus] virus is still public enemy number one," Tedros Adhanom said in a press conference on July 13.
"If the basic principles are not followed, the only way this pandemic is going to go is: it will get worse and worse and worse," Tedros added.
The World Health Organization has repeatedly called for testing suspected cases, tracing contacts, isolating and quarantining patients or suspected cases with the aim of breaking the chain of transmission of the virus.
Dr. Mike Ryan, director of the World Health Organization's emergencies program, emphasized on Monday that in some parts of the Americas, authorities should move toward implementing focused travel restrictions limited to crisis-hit areas.
Data and estimates show that at least 13 million people have been infected with COVID-19 worldwide so far, and more than half a million have died.
These statistics are, of course, subject to doubt in many parts of the world; neither the quality, nor the amount, nor the method of testing, tracing, and quarantining infected people are the same in different countries, nor is transparency and information sharing at the same level.
The World Health Organization and its management have been heavily criticized by US President Donald Trump and a number of senior officials in his administration for their handling of the pandemic, as well as for pursuing a "China-centric" approach. The organization has denied these accusations.
While China and many countries in East Asia have largely controlled the pandemic for some time, the United States and a number of other countries in the Americas, and some others such as India, are on a path of increasing cases.
In Iran, the number of warnings about worsening conditions in every corner of the country is increasing every day.
The official number of cases in Iran has surpassed 13,000, while some researchers and experts from the COVID-19 response center in Iran estimate that at least 20 percent of citizens have been infected so far. The official death toll has also been subject to various doubts.
In the United States, the most crisis-hit country in the world at the moment, only the state of Florida has seen the daily number of patients surpass the total number of daily infections in the European Union in recent days.
In Brazil, the number of infected people is approaching two million, while more than 70,000 deaths have been officially recorded.
In India, the number of cases is approaching 900,000 with more than 23,000 official deaths, in Russia the number of cases has exceeded 720,000 and the number of deaths has exceeded 11,000. The situation in Peru, Chile and Mexico is also deteriorating further.
Source: Radio Farda
