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Image source, WHO / Twitter
Dr. Mark Ryan is head of the WHO emergency program.
In its last conference in 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) highlighted the progress made in the fight against coronavirus. But he also issued a wake-up call to humanity: this pandemic, despite the devastation it caused this year, might not be the worst we face, so we must be prepared.
Dr. Mark Ryan, head of the WHO emergency program, acknowledged on Tuesday that this pandemic “has been very severe, spread extremely fast and has affected every corner of this planet.” But he cautioned that “this is not necessarily the biggest” we can hope for.
“This virus is highly communicable, it kills people and has deprived many people of their loved ones, but its prevalence is comparably low compared to other emerging diseases,” he said.
“This is a wake-up call. We are now learning 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.” alerted.
“If there is one thing we must take out of this pandemic, with all the tragedy and loss, it is that we must act together. We need to prepare for something that could be even more severe in the future. We must honor those we have lost by improving in what we do every day, “he said too.
“Eradication is a very high fence”
This week marks a year since China reported to the WHO the first cases of a new type of pneumonia, which weeks later would be called covid-19.
Image source, fake images
Mexico, Chile and Costa Rica are already applying the vaccine against covid-19.
Since then and until this Tuesday, 81,508,329 cases of the disease have been registered in all the continents of the planet, and 1,779,189 people have died around the world.
In December, The United Kingdom became the first country to launch a mass immunization operation against SARS-CoV-2, by applying the vaccine developed by Pfizer / BioNTech.
Already joined U.S and the European Union, and in Latin America countries like Mexico, Chile and Costa Rica. But vaccination does not mark the end of the pandemic.
During Tuesday’s conference, Dr. Ryan also discussed the future of vaccines.
The expert noted that “it remains to be seen how well they are applied, how close we are to a level of coverage that could allow us the opportunity to aim for elimination, as we have seen with polio or measles.”
But he clarified that “the existence of a vaccine, even with high efficacy, is not a guarantee of elimination or eradication of an infectious disease” and that “this is a very high fence so that we can overcome it.”
First “we must focus on saving lives, controlling this epidemic well so that lives can return to normal and then we will deal with the goal of potentially being able to eradicate or eliminate the virus,” he said.
On the pathogen, Ryan predicted that “the likely scenario is that it becomes another endemic virus that will continue to be a threat, but a very low-level threat in the context of an effective global vaccination program.”
Image source, fake images
The coronavirus is highly communicable, but worse diseases could arise.
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