Geneva: The World Health Organization (WHO) has once again alerted lapses in strategies to tackle Covid-19 this year continue to create the perfect conditions for a "deadly new variant" to emerge.

"WHO estimates that at least 90% of the world’s population now has some level of immunity to SARS-CoV-2, due to prior infection or vaccination. We are much closer to being able to say that the emergency phase of the pandemic is over – but we’re not there yet," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a media interaction.

"Gaps in surveillance, testing, sequencing and vaccination are continuing to create the perfect conditions for a new variant of concern to emerge that could cause significant mortality," he said.

COVID-19 pandemic hit the world late in 2019 and showed its deadly form in 2020.

Even now, several Chinese cities have been put under lockdown to tackle the virial infection.