The head of the World Health Organization has warned that it is too early for countries to declare victory over COVID-19 or give up trying to stop transmission.

It is premature for any country to either surrender or declare victory, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.

According to him, this virus is dangerous and it continues to evolve before our eyes.

His comment came as Denmark became the first EU country to lift all domestic COVID restrictions despite a record number of cases of the milder omicron variant.

The head of the UN health agency noted that since omicron was first discovered in southern Africa 10 weeks ago, nearly 90 million cases have been reported to the WHO, more than in all of 2020.

And although the new variant of COVID is known to be milder, he noted that we are now starting to see a very alarming increase in deaths in most regions of the world. It is vital to continue striving to stop the transmission of the virus, he said.

The head of WHO stressed the need to continue tracking emerging options, including the omicron BA.2 sub-option. This virus will continue to evolve, so we encourage countries to continue testing, surveillance and sequencing, he said.