A World Health Organization (WHO) official says countries should anticipate continued mutation and surge of COVID-19 cases.

This was emphasized by WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific Takeshi Kasai during a virtual press conference on Thursday.

"Unfortunately COVID-19 will not disappear anytime soon and we should anticipate continued mutations and surges," he said.

Kasai said "the Asia Pacific Region is now actually the global epicenter for the Omicron and some member states in our regions are experiencing huge surge while some pacific islands are facing their first instances of the community transmissions.

"Now the countries are currently responding to current Omicron surges by fully utilizing what we have learned together over the past two years," he said.

"With current tools and systems that can sustainably control COVID-19 repeated surge we can end the public health emergency," he added.

Based on the latest data of the WHO, among the countries in Western Pacific Region, Korea has the most number of total COVID-19 cases of 14,553,664, followed by Vietnam with 9,922,040, then Japan with 6,778,235, Australia with 4,587845, Malaysia with 4,268,486 and the Philippines is 6th with 3,679,983.

However, Kasai said no countries have so far reached the "red line" or the serious illness that exceeds the capacity of the health care system.

"So far no countries have reached the red line, the red line means the serious illness exceeds the capacity of health care, there are many factors on this including high vaccination coverage and maintaining the basic public health and social measures," he said.

"We must continue to strengthen our system so that they can best respond to repeated surges and mutations but most importantly we can be ready for the next pandemic," he added.

Kasai noted that "the pandemic is a start reminder that our health and the system implace to keep us healthy are fragile."

"The urgency for everyone to take actions to protect our planet and our health is no longer tomorrow but is today," he said. Robina Asido/DMS