GENEVA (AP) – The ***** Health Organization said Friday that ******** no longer qualifies as a global *********, marking a symbolic end to the devastating *********** ******** that triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns, upended economies worldwide and ****** at least 7 million people worldwide.

WHO first declared ******** to be an ********* more than three years ago. The U.N. health agency’s officials said that even though the ********* phase was over, the ******** hasn’t come to an end, noting recent spikes in cases in Southeast Asia and the ***********. WHO says that thousands of people are still dying from the ***** every week.

“It’s with great hope that I declare ******** over as a global health *********,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

“That does not mean ******** is over as a global health ******,” he said, adding he wouldn’t hesitate to reconvene experts to reassess the situation should ******** “put our ***** in peril.”

Tedros said the ******** had been on a downward trend for more than a year, acknowledging that most countries have already returned to life before ********.

He bemoaned the damage that ******** had done to the global community, saying the ***** had shattered businesses, exacerbated political divisions and plunged millions into poverty. Tedros also noted that there were likely at least 20 million ******** ******, far more than the officially reported 7 million.

“***** has changed our ***** and it has changed us,” he said, warning that the risk of new variants still remained.

Dr. Michael Ryan, WHO’s emergencies chief, said it was incumbent on heads of states and other leaders to decide on how future health threats should be faced, given the numerous problems that crippled the *****’s response to ********. Countries are negotiating a ******** treaty that some hope may spell out how future ******* threats will be faced but it’s unlikely any such treaty would be legally binding.

When the U.N. health agency first declared the *********** to be an international ****** on Jan. 30, 2020, it hadn’t yet been named ******** and there were no major outbreaks beyond China.

More than three years later, the ***** has caused an estimated 764 million cases globally and about 5 billion people have received at least one dose of vaccine.

In the U.S., the public health ********* declaration made regarding ******** is set to expire on May 11, when wide-ranging measures to support the ******** response, including vaccine mandates, will end. Many other countries, including Germany, France and *******, dropped many of their provisions against the ******** last year.

When Tedros declared ******** to be an ********* in 2020, he said his greatest fear was the *****’ potential to spread in countries with weak health systems he described as “ill-prepared.”

In fact, some of the countries that suffered the ***** ******** ***** tolls were previously judged to be the best-prepared for a ********, including the U.S. and *******. According to WHO data, the number of ****** reported in Africa account for just 3% of the global total.

WHO doesn’t “declare” pandemics, but first used the term to describe the outbreak in March 2020, when the ***** had spread to every continent except Antarctica, long after many other scientists had said a ******** was already underway.

WHO is the only agency mandated to coordinate the *****’s response to acute health threats, but the organization faltered repeatedly as the *********** unfolded.

In January 2020, WHO publicly applauded China for its supposed speedy and transparent response, even though recordings of private meetings obtained by The Associated Press showed top officials were frustrated at the country’s lack of cooperation.

WHO also recommended against members of the public wearing masks to protect against ******** for months, a mistake many health officials say cost lives.

Numerous scientists also slammed WHO’s reluctance to acknowledge that ******** was frequently spread in the air and by people without symptoms, criticizing the agency’s lack of strong guidance to prevent such exposure.

Tedros was a vociferous critic of rich countries who hoarded the limited supplies of ******** vaccines, warning that the ***** was on the brink of a “catastrophic moral failure” by failing to share ***** with poor countries.

Most recently, WHO has been struggling to investigate the origins of the ***********, a challenging scientific endeavour that has also become politically fraught.

After a weeks-long visit to China, WHO released a report in 2021 concluding that ******** most likely jumped into humans from animals, dismissing the possibility that it originated in a lab as “extremely unlikely.”

But the U.N. agency backtracked the following year, saying “key pieces of data” were still missing and that it was premature to rule out that ******** might have ties to a lab.

A panel commissioned by WHO to review its performance criticized China and other countries ******* moving quicker to stop the ***** and said the organization was constrained both by its limited finances and inability to compel countries to act.