WHO(World Health Organization) warns that CoVID-19 pandemic may not be the biggest. The experts have told that the world will have to learn to live with this virus.
As the vaccines are coming out for the virus and have been started in US and UK The virus is most likely to become an endemic instead of pandemic, told Professor David Heymann.
“The world has hoped for herd immunity, that somehow transmission would be decreased if enough persons were immune,” Professor added.
As Heymann is an epidemiologist from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, he told that the concept of herd immunity have been misunderstood.
“It appears the destiny of SARS-CoV-2 [Covid-19] is to become endemic, as have four other human coronaviruses, and that it will continue to mutate as it reproduces in human cells, especially in areas of more intense admission”.
“Fortunately, we have tools to save lives, and these in combination with good public health will permit us to learn to live with Covid-19.”
Dr Mark Ryan, the head of the WHO emergencies program, said: “The likely scenario is the virus will become another endemic virus that will remain somewhat of a threat, but a very low-level threat in the context of an effective global vaccination program.”
“It remains to be seen how well the vaccines are taken up, how close we get to a coverage level that might allow us the opportunity to go for elimination,” he added. “The existence of a vaccine, even at high efficacy, is no guarantee of eliminating or eradicating an infectious disease. That is a very high bar for us to be able to get over.”
“That was why the first goal of the vaccine was to save lives and protect the vulnerable, told Ryan. “And then we will deal with the moonshot of potentially being able to eliminate or eradicate this virus.”
He gave a warning that “This pandemic has been very severe … it has affected every corner of this planet. But this is not necessarily the big one”.
“This is a wake-up call. We are learning, now, how to do things better: science, logistics, training and governance, how to communicate better. But the planet is fragile.”
“We live in an increasingly complex global society. These threats will continue. If there is one thing we need to take from this pandemic, with all of the tragedy and loss, is we need to get our act together. We need to honour those we’ve lost by getting better at what we do every day.”
Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, WHO chief scientist, briefed that injected with vaccine does not mean that taking preventive measures and social distancing can be stopped.
“The first role of the vaccine would be to prevent symptomatic disease, severe disease and deatths” Swaminathan told. “But whether the vaccines would also reduce the number of infections or prevent people from passing on the virus remains to be seen.”
“I don’t believe we have the evidence on any of the vaccines to be confident that it’s going to prevent people from actually getting the infection and therefore being able to pass it on,” she told. “So I think we need to assume that people who have been vaccinated also need to take the same precautions.”
“For example, new variants of Covid-19, and helping people who are tired of the pandemic continue to combat it,” Todros Adhanom, WHO Director General told.
“New ground has been broken, not least with the extraordinary cooperation between the private and public sector in this pandemic. And in recent weeks, safe and effective vaccine rollout has started in a number countries, which is an incredible scientific achievement.”
“This is fantastic, but WHO will not rest until those in need everywhere have access to the new vaccines and are protected.” he added.
Read More: https://healthtoday.pk/new-variant-corona-virus-spreads-on-a-tremendous-rate-in-south-africa/
