WHO Ends Zika As Global Emergency
For two years, there has been a Zika Virus epidemic that alarmed the world. The outbreak caused World Health Organization (WHO) to declare public health emergency in February 2016. Just recently, WHO finally ends the declared emergency.
New York Times reports that WHO publicly expressed that the Zika Virus global health emergency is finally over. This however, shocked the public health expert who are confronting the issue. An agency advisory committee, mentioned that it said it ended the emergency because Zika is now categorized to be a disease that is mosquito-borne comparable to malaria. But, it should continue to be seen as a threat. There were committee members expressing that they don’t consider Zika Virus epidemic over.
Executive Director of the W.H.O.’s health emergencies program, Dr. Peter Salama said that “We are not downgrading the importance of Zika”. “We are sending the message that Zika is here to stay and the W.H.O. response is here to stay.”
Zika may come back once in a while since it is seasonal. According to Dr. David L. Heymann, chair of the advisory committee, countries can individually declare local emergencies in the event of local outbreak. There are concerns by experts that since WHO has declared the emergency over, response to the disease might slow down, risking people who are not infected with it.
According to CNN, WHO emergency committee wanted to change the announcement, pointing out that Zika is still high priority. "A robust longer-term technical mechanism was now required to manage the global response," says the committee.
Science Mag also reports that Zika virus and its complications are very high risk like permanent birth defects and paralysis. The approach to face this issue should be long term. It should also be emphasized that complications and cause are still in a long process of research and study since there are a lot of unanswered questions that need to be addressed, thus, vigilance is still the important.
