Also pushed into poverty is the Pacific, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said Thursday.

An estimated 155.2 million people in Asia and the Pacific or 3.9 per cent of the region’s population were living in extreme poverty.

Those surviving on less than $2.15 a day, as at 2022, according to the key indicators report of the Manila-based bank.

The number was 67.8 million higher than it would have been without the pandemic and soaring inflation.

“Asia and the Pacific is steadily recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, but the increased cost-of-living crisis is undermining progress toward eliminating poverty,’’ ADB chief economist Albert Park said.

“By strengthening social safety nets for the poor and fostering investment and innovation that created opportunities for growth and employment, governments in the region can get back on track,’’ he added.

Inflation surged to record levels in most countries around the world last year due to disruptions in food and energy markets.

“Poor people were hurt the most because they have to spend more for basic necessities such as food and fuel, leaving them unable to save money.

“They paid for health care and invested in education,” the ADB report said.

“Women may have also been disproportionately affected, as they tend to earn less than men while also being subject to unpaid work,’’ it added.

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Dr  Tedros Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, said this during an online media conference.

“Three months ago, I declared an end to COVID-19 as a global health emergency, although I said that it remains a global health threat.

“Since then, the number of reported cases, hospitalisations and deaths globally has continued to decline.

“However, the number of countries reporting data to WHO has also declined significantly,” Ghebreyesus said.

He said that in the past month, only 25 per cent of countries and territories have reported COVID-19 deaths to WHO, and only 11 per cent have reported hospitalisations and ICU admissions.

According to him, this does not mean that other countries don not have deaths or hospitalisations, it means they are not reporting them to WHO.

“There is no question that the risk of severe disease and death is vastly lower than it was a year ago.

“Thanks to increasing population immunity from vaccination, infection or both, and from early diagnosis with better clinical care.

“The virus continues to circulate in all countries, it continues to kill and it continues to change,” he said.

The WHO  boss said that the organisation was currently tracking several variants including EG.5, for which they are publishing a risk evaluation on Wednesday.

He said that the risk remained of a more dangerous variant emerging that could cause a sudden increase in cases and deaths.

“When I declared an end to the COVID-19 emergency in May, I announced that I was establishing a review committee to advise me on standing recommendations to support countries to manage COVID-19 in the long-term,” Ghebreyesus said.

He said that standing recommendations for countries in seven major areas was issued on Wednesday

According to him, the recommendations reinforce the advice WHO has provided to countries in its Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan, published in May.

He said the recommendations are first, all countries should update their national COVID-19 programmes using the WHO Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan, to move towards longer term sustained management of COVID-19.

The second, he said that the organisation urged all countries to sustain collaborative surveillance for COVID-19, to detect significant changes in the virus, as well as trends in disease severity and population immunity.

According to him, the third recommendations asked that all countries should report COVID-19 data to WHO or in open sources, especially on death and severe disease, genetic sequences, and data on vaccine effectiveness.

He said the fourth, urged all countries to continue to offer COVID-19 vaccination, especially for the most at-risk groups, who are most likely to be hospitalised or to die.

“Fifth, all countries should continue to initiate, support, and collaborate on research to generate evidence for COVID-19 prevention and control.

“Sixth, all countries should deliver optimal clinical care for COVID-19, including access to proven treatments and measures to protect health workers and caregivers.

“And seventh, all countries should continue to work towards ensuring equitable access to safe, effective and quality-assured vaccines, tests and treatments for COVID-19,” Ghebreyesus said.

According to him, WHO  recognises that many people and governments view COVID-19 as a thing of the past.

He said that the  recommendations are important because of those who lost someone they love and for those who continue to be at risk of severe disease or death.

According to him, it  is also for those who continue to suffer from post-COVID-19 condition for them, COVID-19 is still a daily threat, and a daily trauma.

He said that implementing these recommendations would not only help to protect against COVID-19, it would also help countries to prevent and respond to other diseases.

“We cannot predict the future, but we can prepare for the future,” Ghebreyesus said.

According to him, the review committee is also discussing standing recommendations for mpox, which it will deliver later this week.

“It’s important to emphasise that these recommendations do not interfere with the ongoing negotiations on the new pandemic accord or on amendments to the International Health Regulations,” he said.

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Mr Dayo Adigun, the Laboratory Vocal Person, Oyo State Public Health Emergency Operation Centre, representing NCDC, made this known on Wednesday in Ibadan.

Adigun spoke at a sensitisation and mobilisation programme organised by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Oyo State chapter.

He said the centre had carried out COVID-19 test on 91, 271 people in the state among whom 10, 156 tested positive to the virus from 2020 till date.

According to him, COVID-19 is still in existence in Oyo State and Nigeria in general, but people were not really coming out for test, thinking the virus was no more.

Adigun said that there have not been increase in the number of people infected with the virus nowadays, because people were no longer coming out for test.

He called on residents of the state to go for testing in order to know their status and vaccination to build their immune system against the virus.

Adigun said that a lot of vaccines at the centre had expired and were disposed off, because people were not coming for vaccination.

Earlier, Mr Kayode Martins, NLC Chairman in the state, said that COVID-19 was still prevalence.

Martins said that the programme was organised to sensitise workers and the entire residents of the state in order to prevent the spread of the virus.

He said the programme was organised in collaboration with the National Agency for the Control of Aids (NACA).

According to him, the world of work has been greatly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic since it was discovered in China in 2019.

He said that the pandemic had threatened and caused economic and social disruptions for businesses and individuals around the world.

Martins said that many work places were closed down, with their workers thrown out of employment, because the employers could not maintain the pre-COVID-19 pay and incentives for them.

He said some people nowadays thought the virus had gone, noting that the sensitisation had made it known that the virus still exist.

“We encourage people to come to the NLC Secretariat on Thursdays and Fridays for screening and vaccination as from 9.00 a.m.

“The virus is still with us and we have to live with it and manage it,” he said.

Some of the participants at the programme included the state NULGE President, Mr Ayobami Adeogun; Oyo State NUT Secretary, Mr Salami Olukayode and Mr Dosu Akinpeku, representing the state pensioners, among others, commended the organiser of the state.

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The clash was the latest in a string of protests that boiled over at the weekend.

The clashes, which follow protests in Shanghai, Beijing, and elsewhere, erupted as China posts record numbers of COVID-19 cases daily and health officials, including in the southern region around Guangzhou, announced a slight loosening of the curbs.

Mainland China’s biggest wave of civil disobedience since the 1989 Tiananmen protests comes as its economy sputters after growing at breakneck rates for decades.

That era of prosperity was fundamental for the social contract between the Communist Party and a population whose freedoms have been dramatically curtailed since President Xi Jinping took power 10 years ago.

In one video posted on Twitter, dozens of riot police in all-white pandemic gear, holding shields over their heads, advanced in formation over what appeared to be torn-down lockdown barriers as objects fly at them.

Police were later seen escorting a row of people in handcuffs to an unknown location.

Another video clip showed people throwing objects at the police, while a third showed a tear gas canister landing in the middle of a small crowd on a narrow street, with people then running to escape the fumes.

Reuters verified that the videos were filmed in Guangzhou’s Haizhu district, the scene of COVID-19-related unrest two weeks ago, but could not determine when the clips were taken or the exact sequence of events and what sparked the clashes.

Social media posts said the clashes took place on Tuesday night and were caused by a dispute over lockdown curbs.

The government of Guangzhou, a city hard-hit in the latest wave of infections, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

China Dissent Monitor, run by U.S. government-funded Freedom House, estimated at least 27 demonstrations took place across China from Saturday to Monday.

Australia’s ASPI think-tank estimated 43 protests in 22 cities.

Home to many migrant factory workers, Guangzhou is a sprawling port city north of Hong Kong in Guangdong province, where officials announced late on Tuesday they would allow close contacts of COVID-19 cases to quarantine at home rather than being forced to go to shelters.

The decision broke with the usual practice under China’s zero-COVID-19 policy.

In Zhengzhou, the site of a big Foxconn factory making Apple iPhones that has been the scene of worker unrest over COVID-19, officials announced the “orderly” resumption of businesses, including supermarkets, gyms, and restaurants.

However, they also published a long list of buildings that would remain under lockdown.

Hours before those announcements, national health officials said on Tuesday that China would respond to “urgent concerns” raised by the public and that COVID-19 rules should be implemented more flexibly, according to each region’s conditions.

But while the easing of some measures appears to be an attempt to appease the public, authorities have also begun to seek out those who have been at recent protests.

“Police came to my front door to ask me about it all and get me to complete a written record,” a Beijing resident who declined to be identified told Reuters on Wednesday.

Another resident said some friends who posted videos of protests on social media were taken to a police station and asked to sign a promise they “would not do that again”.

It was not clear how authorities identified the people they wanted questioned, nor how many such people authorities contacted.

Beijing’s Public Security Bureau did not comment.

On Wednesday, several police cars and security personnel were posted at an eastern Beijing bridge where a protest took place three days earlier.

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An increased police contingent could be observed on the streets of the capital Beijing and other major cities such as Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Hangzhou since Monday.

Security forces increasingly stopped passers-by and checked their phones for suspicious content or software including VPNs that could be used to bypass online censorship.

In Beijing, police were particularly focused on securing the Liangma River promenade near the diplomatic quarter, where hundreds had demonstrated on Sunday evening.

Meanwhile, in the financial hub of Shanghai, barriers were set up along Wulumuqi Road to prevent large crowds from gathering, as they did at the weekend.

The recent protests, highly unusual in the Communist-ruled country with more than 1.4 billion inhabitants, were apparently triggered by anger about a deadly fire that broke out in a residential building at the weekend in the regional capital of Xinjiang, Ürümqi, in which 10 people were killed.

Several residents said on social media that the coronavirus restrictions had hampered rescue efforts.

Large parts of the Xinjiang region and its capital have been under lockdown for more than 100 days.

China is currently seeing its highest coronavirus case numbers since the beginning of the pandemic.

On Tuesday, the health commission in Beijing reported some 38,400 new cases, a slight drop compared to the record of more than 40,000 set a day earlier.

Extensive restrictions on movement are currently in place in multiple Chinese cities with more than one million inhabitants, such as Beijing, the severely affected southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, and Chongqing.

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China’s state newspaper, Global Times, reported on Thursday.

The southern Chinese metropolis of Guangzhou, which had a particularly bad outbreak of cases, cancelled over 1,000 flights.

More than 700 flights were also cancelled at two major airports in the capital Beijing.

The government is implementing strict measures to contain the spread of the virus such as flight cancellations, lockdowns, forced quarantines and mass testing.

In spite of the country’s zero-Covid policy, which has put a heavy strain on its economy, the number of infections across China has been on the rise again for weeks.

After reporting 8,176 coronavirus cases the day before, authorities reported around 8,800 more infections nationwide on Thursday.

The number of infections in major cities other than Guangzhou, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing has also been rising again in recent days.

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The opinion is contained in an interim statement from the WHO Technical Advisory Group on COVID-19 Vaccine Composition, an expert group appointed by the UN health agency, which was established in September, 2021.

Amid increased Omicron circulation, members have called for “urgent and broad access” to current vaccines globally, both for protection and to mitigate the emergence of new variants of concern, or VOCs.

The 18 experts are developing a framework to analyse the evidence on emerging VOCs “in the context of criteria that would trigger a recommendation to change COVID-19 vaccine strain composition and will advise WHO on updated vaccine compositions, as required.”

They said vaccines that had a high impact on prevention of infection and transmission, in addition to prevention of severe disease and death, were needed and should be developed.

“Until such vaccines are available, and as the SARS-CoV-2 virus evolves, the composition of current COVID-19 vaccines may need to be updated, to ensure that COVID-19 vaccines continue to provide WHO-recommended levels of protection against infection and disease by VOCs, including Omicron and future variants.’’

The Technical Advisory Group will consider a change in vaccine composition to ensure doses continue to meet WHO criteria, including protection against severe disease, and to improve vaccine-induced protection.

Vaccines need to be “based on strains that are genetically and anti-genetically close” to circulating variants.

Additionally, they must protect against severe disease and death, and be more effective against infection, thus lowering virus transmission and the need for stringent public health and social measures.

The expert group has encouraged COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers to generate and provide data on the performance of current and Omicron-specific vaccines, which will inform any decision when changes to vaccine composition may be required.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus first emerged in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, and has continued to evolve. WHO has so far designated five variants of concern: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Omicron.

“While the Omicron variant is spreading rapidly across the world, the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 is expected to continue and Omicron is unlikely to be the last VOC,” the experts said.

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The pope said in a video message in Spanish released on Wednesday

“Thanks to God and to the work of many, today we have vaccines to protect us from COVID-19.

“These give us hope to come out of this pandemic, but only if they are available to all and if we work together. To get inoculated with vaccines approved by the relevant authorities is an act of love.

“Getting vaccinated is a simple but impactful way to promote the common good and take care of each other, especially of the most vulnerable,” the 84-year-old pope said.

The video was released as part of the international campaign “De ti depende, it depends on you” in Spanish to promote vaccinations against COVID-19.

Several high ranking Catholic figures from across the Americas were also part of the campaign.

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The deadly wave has left scores of patients without access to proper treatment at hospitals.

India, currently undergoing the world’s worst coronavirus outbreak, recorded 403,738 fresh infections and 4,092 deaths in the past 24 hours, the government said on Sunday.

The numbers brought the overall caseload to over 22 million and the death toll to 242,362 in the country, data released by the Federal Health Ministry showed.

The surge in new infections in rural areas and major cities are aggravating India’s healthcare crisis.

Bengaluru, capital of the southern state of Karnataka, a new virus hotspot, is reporting almost half of the region’s daily over 50,000 cases.

It has the worst active caseload among India’s cities, hovering over 320,000 infections.

Images have shown critical patients being turned away from hospitals facing shortages of medical oxygen or intensive care beds.

Doctors at a government-run COVID-19 facility said they had to decide between several critical patients since there was just one intensive care bed left in the hospital on most days.

“Most days, we have to choose one between 30 sick patients who will be shifted to the ICU, knowing well that the other 29 patients will die in the next one or two days,’’ a doctor, identified as Shilpa, told NDTV.

The second wave is fast spreading to rural districts, with nearly half of the new cases coming from rural areas, online news portal The Print reported, citing estimates by economists.

Most of India’s rural areas lack the medical infrastructure to deal with the pandemic.

The rundown local hospitals and health centres, already facing shortages of doctors, are unable to cope with the crisis.

The domestic media has reported several deaths of villagers owing to delays in reaching the distantly located health centres, as well as lack of treatment at ill-equipped facilities.

Many cases may be going unrecorded in villages across the most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, where lack of testing could lead to under-reporting of new cases.

Amid a crisis over medical oxygen reported from different areas, India’s Supreme Court has formed a National Task Force to ensure adequate supplies of the life-saving gas to hospitals.

India has become a global epicentre of the coronavirus, accounting for 46 per cent of global cases and 25 per cent of global deaths, the World Health Organization’s weekly epidemiological report said last week.

In recent days, many states in India have declared lockdowns as opposition leaders urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to announce nationwide curbs.

The pandemic has claimed more than 3.2 million lives worldwide since it first emerged in late 2019.

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The numbers brought the overall caseload to over 22 million and the death toll to 242,362 in the country reeling under the second wave of the pandemic, data released by the federal health ministry showed.

India has seen over 400,000 daily infections for the fifth time in a week and over 4,000 deaths for the second consecutive day.

The country has become a global epicentre of the virus, accounting for 46 per cent of global cases and 25 per cent of global deaths, the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) weekly epidemiological report on May 5, showed.

Amid a crisis over medical oxygen and distress messages from patients, the country’s supreme court has formed a national task force to ensure adequate supplies of life-saving gas to hospitals.

In recent days, many states in India have declared lockdowns as opposition leaders urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to announce nationwide curbs.

India, the second-most infected country after the United States that has a 32.6 million caseload, is in the grip of a second wave that began mid-February.

The pandemic has claimed more than 3.2 million lives worldwide since it first emerged in late 2019.

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