Sharjah24 – Reuters: The Covid-19 pandemic is “most certainly not over”, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Sunday (May 22) during the opening session of the U.N agency's annual assembly.

More than 100 world health ministers meet in Geneva this week for the WHO's first in-person World Health Assembly in three years.

As the delegates meet, COVID-19 infections were still rising and and efforts to vaccinate the world remained incomplete, Tedros told the assembly.

“It’s not over anywhere until it’s over everywhere. Reported cases are increasing in almost 70 countries in all regions – and this in a world in which testing rates have plummeted,” he said.

As the U.N. agency seeks to define its future role in global health policy, the agenda is the most packed in the WHO's 75-year history and is seen as an historic opportunity to move on from the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to 15 million deaths, and prepare for the next global outbreak.