Neglecting COVID-19 this year is creating the perfect conditions for a deadly new variant to emerge, the head of the World Health Organization said on Friday.

The comments by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus marked a change in tone just months after he said that the world has never been in a better position to end the pandemic.

"We are much closer to being able to say that the emergency phase of the pandemic is over, but we're not there yet," Tedros said on Friday.

The global health agency estimates that about 90% of the world's population now has some level of immunity to SARS-COV-2 either due to prior infection or vaccination.