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Health Ministry to prepare transition to end COVID emergency status
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced on Friday the lifting of the PHEIC status of COVID-19, citing declining cases and mortality from the disease for more than a year, while population immunity had also increased from vaccination and infection.
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(From left) World Health Organization (WHO) assistant director-general Hanan Balkhy, WHO chief scientist John Reede, WHO assistant director-general Maria Neira, Chef de Cabinet Catharina Boehme, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO technical lead on COVID-19 Maria Van Kerkhove and WHO assistant director-general Samira Asma, attend a press conference on the World Health Organization's 75th anniversary in Geneva, on April 6, 2023.
(AFP/Fabrice Coffrini)
The Health Ministry is preparing the transitional steps for Indonesia to end the COVID-19 health emergency following the World Health Organization’s (WHO) decree that it was lifting the Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) status for the disease on Friday.
“We express our gratitude to all medical and health workers that have struggled together to control the spread of COVID-19 in Indonesia. And now, together, we are heading toward ending the emergency status [of COVID-19],” Health Ministry spokesperson Mohammad Syahril said in a statement on Saturday.
On Friday, the WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced the lifting of the PHEIC status for COVID-19, citing declining cases and mortality from the disease for more than a year, while population immunity had also increased from vaccination and infection.
“Mortality decreasing and pressure on the health system easing. [...] It is therefore with great hope that I declare it over as a global health emergency," Tedros said in a press briefing.
Tedros stressed that COVID-19 remained a serious threat to global public health, and countries should not use the latest news to let down their guard and dismantle the public health systems they had built to contain diseases like COVID-19.
Syahril said that the ministry had consulted with the WHO director-general and team in Geneva and Jakarta on how Indonesia should prepare for a pandemic-transition period prior to the WHO announcement of the removal of the PHEIC status for COVID-19.
