WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. (Source: VNA)

In a statement on Friday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus affirmed that the world now has all "tools to end this calamity".

But Ghebreyesus’ optimistic post from came with a warning: The longer inequity continues, the longer the pandemic will persist. As long as vaccine inequality continues, there is a greater risk that the virus will evolve to levels that cannot be prevented or predicted, he said. 

According to the latest statistics provided by worldometers.info, the number of COVID-19 cases worldwide has exceeded 288 million, with nearly 5.5 million deaths.