The World Health Organization warned Monday that the Covid-19 epidemic is "far from its end," calling on the world to act from now without waiting for a vaccine.
"Tomorrow, it will be six months since the World Health Organization received the first reports of a group of idiopathic pneumonia cases in China," WHO Director-General Tidros Adanum Gebresos said in an online news conference.
"Six months ago, no one of us could have imagined how our world and our lives would be transformed by this new virus," he added.
Six months after China officially announced the outbreak of the disease in December, the new corona has claimed more than 500,000 people worldwide. Over ten million people have been injured, about half of whom have recovered.
"We all want that to end. But the difficult reality is that it is far from its end," said the director of the organization, repeating that the epidemic is "accelerating" at the present time.
"We have lost many things before, but we do not want to lose hope."
He pointed out that a vaccine would be an "important tool" for controlling the virus in the long term, calling on governments and citizens to develop "simple solutions" with the aim of "saving lives now."
He called on governments to "conduct checks, track, isolate and quarantine the injured." He asked people to respect hygiene measures and to put up masks when necessary and to respect the rules of social separation.
