On behalf of the WHO Director-General, the Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, Dr Michael J. Ryan, welcomed Members and Advisors of the Emergency Committee, all of whom were convened by videoconference.
Dr Ryan expressed concern regarding the current global COVID-19 epidemiological situation. Cases of COVID-19 reported to WHO had increased by 30% in the last two weeks, largely driven by Omicron BA.4, BA.5 and other descendant lineages and the lifting of public health and social measures (PHSM). This increase in cases was translating into pressure on health systems in a number of WHO regions. Dr Ryan highlighted additional challenges to the ongoing COVID-19 response: recent changes in testing policies that hinder the detection of cases and the monitoring of virus evolution; inequities in access to testing, sequencing, vaccines and therapeutics, including new antivirals; waning of natural and vaccine-derived protection; and the global burden of Post COVID-19 condition.
The Ethics Officer from the Department of Compliance, Risk Management, and Ethics briefed Members and Advisors on their roles and responsibilities. Members and Advisor were also reminded of their duty of confidentiality as to the meeting discussions and the work of the Committee, as well as their individual responsibility to disclose to WHO, in a timely manner, any interests of a personal, professional, financial, intellectual or commercial nature that may give rise to a perceived or direct conflict of interest. Each Member and Advisor who was present was surveyed. No conflicts of interest were identified.
The Representative of the Office of Legal Counsel briefed the Members and Advisor on their roles and responsibilities and the mandate of the Emergency Committee under the relevant articles of the SHR.
The meeting was handed over to the Chair of the Emergency Committee regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, Professor Didier Poussin. The Chair introduced the objectives of the meeting: to provide views to the WHO Director-General on whether the COVID-19 pandemic continues to constitute a PHE IC, and to review temporary recommendations to States Parties.
Deliberative session
The Committee discussed the following issues: the impact of SARS-CoV-2 virus evolution on the public health response and capacities of health services; progress towards increasing COVID-19 vaccination coverage; changes in testing and surveillance strategies; societal and political risk perception and community engagement; equity and access to countermeasures, vaccines and therapeutics; and maintaining political engagement while balancing the need to respond to other public health priorities and emergencies. The Committee discussed that SARS-CoV-2 virus had not yet established its ecological niche and that the implications of a pandemic caused by a novel respiratory virus may not be fully understood. Consequently, given the current shape and unpredictable dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Committee emphasized the need to reduce the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 virus. This requires the responsible, consistent, and continued use of individual-level protective measures, to the benefit of communities as a whole; as well as the continued adjustments of community-wide PHSM, to overcome the “all or nothing” binary approaches.
The Committee expressed concern as to the ongoing changes observed in States Parties with respect to steep reductions in testing, resulting in reduced coverage and quality of surveillance as fewer cases are being detected and reported to WHO; and fewer genomic sequences to open access platforms – resulting in a lack of representation of genomic sequences from all WHO regions. This impedes assessments of currently circulating and emerging variants of the virus, including the generation and analysis of phenotypic data. The above is translating into the increasing inability to interpret trends in transmission, and consequently to properly inform the adjustments of PHSM.
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