WHO says Covid remains a global emergency but pandemic could near its end in 2023

The World Health Organization on Monday said Covid-19 remains an global health emergency as the world enters the fourth year of the pandemic, CNBC said.

But WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was hopeful that the world will transition out of the emergency phase of the pandemic this year.

"We remain hopeful that in the coming year, the world will transition to a new phase in which we reduce hospitalizations and deaths to the lowest possible level, and health systems are able to manage Covid-19 in an integrated and sustainable way," Tedros said in a statement.

The WHO's emergency committee met on Friday and advised Tedros that the virus, which was initially discovered in Wuhan, China in late 2019, remains a public health emergency of international concern, the U.N. agency's highest alert level. The WHO first declared an emergency in January 2020.