ISLAMABAD- Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned countries against becomingcomplacent and praised health care workers battling on the frontlines ofthe COVID-19 pandemic.

World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesusissued a strong warning while addressing the UN’s health agency’s annualassembly of health ministers from its 194 member states.

“The world remains in a very dangerous situation,” said Ghebreyesus,cautioning countries against assuming they were “out of the woods,” nomatter how successful their vaccination rate might be.

He applauded the global efforts of medical workers battling on thefrontlines of the health crisis, but emphasised that as long as theSARS-CoV-2 virus and its variants were spreading, there is no room forcomplacency.

“Make no mistake, this will not be the last time the world faces the threatof pandemic. It’s an evolutionary certainty that there will be anothervirus with the potential to be more transmittable and more deadly than thisone,” he said.

The COVID-19 pandemic, according to the WHO chief, is plagued by a”scandalous inequity” in vaccine distribution, as he said more than 75percent of all COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in just 10countries

Ghebreyesus underscored the new targets being set for protecting people inthe poorest countries from the pandemic.

“There is no diplomatic way to say it: A small group of countries that makeand buy the majority of the world’s vaccines control the fate of the restof the world,” he stated, before urging countries to donate vaccine toCOVAX – the global vaccine-sharing initiative run by WHO and the GAVIvaccine alliance.

“This is crucial to stop disease and death, keep our health-care workerssafe, reopen our societies and economies,” the WHO head added.