WHO Chief hopeful that COVID-19 will end in 2022

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) is optimistic that the coronavirus pandemic will be conquered by 2022 if countries cooperate to stop it from spreading.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu warned against "narrow nationalism and vaccine hoarding in a new year statement."

His remarks come two years after the World Health Organization was initially notified of cases of an unknown pneumonia strain in China.

Covid cases have already reached 287 million worldwide, with over 5.5 million patients dying. People are ringing in the new year, but celebrations are low-key, since many countries choose to avoid crowds.

Coronavirus is still a part of everyday life: a sickness that has closed borders, divided families, and made it unthinkable to leave the house without a mask in some regions.

Despite this, Dr Tedros ended his address on a hopeful note, stating that there are now many more options available to treat Covid-19.

However, he cautioned that unfairness in vaccination delivery was raising the likelihood of the virus mutating.

"Narrow nationalism and vaccine hoarding by some countries have harmed equity and produced ideal conditions for the formation of the Omicron variety, and the longer inequity persists, the greater the chance of the virus changing in ways we can't predict," he added.

"If we can eliminate disparity, we can eliminate the pandemic," he concluded.

While the majority of the population in Europe and the Americas has received at least one shot, most of Africa has failed to meet a WHO target of full immunisation rates in 40% of all countries by the end of 2021.

Dr. Tedros has previously chastised wealthy countries for "gobbling up" the global vaccine supply, vaccination a large proportion of their populations while others wait for their first doses.

To stop the pandemic, the WHO has established a new goal for 2022: vaccine 70% of people in all countries by July.