The Covid-19 Emergency Committee had its fourth meeting on July 31. It was convened by WHO Director-General under International Health Regulations (IHR) (2005). The statement that was published on July 1 put forth its “appreciation for WHO and partners’ Covid-19 pandemic response efforts, and highlighted the anticipated lengthy duration of this Covid-19 pandemic, noting the importance of sustained community, national, regional, and global response efforts.”

The committee unanimously reached an agreement after discussion and review of evidence that Covid-19 outbreak is still a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC). The advice was then offered to WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Dr. Tedros accepted the Committee’s advice and confirmed the outbreak to be a PHEIC. WHO’s highest level of alarm under IHR, the PHEIC was declared by the Director-General on January 30. At this time there were lesser than 100 cases and no fatalities outside China. He has issued the advice to States Parties under IHR as Temporary Recommendations.

On Friday, Dr. Tedros said to Committee in his opening statements, “The pandemic is a once-in-a-century health crisis, the effects of which will be felt for decades to come. Many countries that believed they were past the worst are now grappling with new outbreaks. Some that were less affected in the earliest weeks are now seeing escalating numbers of cases and deaths. And some that had large outbreaks have brought them under control.”

Many recommendations were put forward by the Committee to WHO and State Parties. To WHO the Committee advised to continue with “mobilizing global and regional multilateral organizations and partners for Covid-19 preparedness and response”. This would ensure support to Member states in health services maintenance along with increasing the research, diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines.

The Committee also advised countries to extend support to all the research processes along with increasing funding. Also it asked countries to join efforts for ensuring equitable distribution of diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines through Access to Covid-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator.

Countries were also called for strengthening public health surveillance for identifying cases and contact tracing, specially in low resource, vulnerable and high risk areas, to ensure essential health services availability. Proportionate measures implementation and travel advisories on basis of risk assessments was also advised to countries. Regular review of these measures was also advised by the Committee.