By Stephanie Nebehay and John Miller
GENEVA / ZURICH (Reuters) – The World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday reiterated its advice that sources allow people exposed to the new coronavirus to be tested, even if they do not show immediate symptoms of infection.
The remarks come after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said this week that people exposed to COVID-19, but not symptomatic, may not need to be tested, surprising doctors and politicians and accusations the accompaniment was political motivated.
Maria Van Kerkhove, a WHO epidemiologist, said the UN agency recommends recommended cases and their contacts be checked, if possible, but the focus should be on people showing signs of infection.
“Our recommendations are to test suspected cases, and we have definitions for you. We have definitions of contacts, and who contacts are of confirmed cases, and make recommendations that contacts, if possible, should be checked, regardless of the development of symptoms, “Van Kerkhove told a newsletter.
“However, the focus is on those who develop symptoms.”
Mike Ryan, head of WHO’s emergency program, said there was a reason for testing asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic people, especially where clumps of infections occurred, but that broad population testing was costly and unrealistic.
“It consumes large amounts of resources,” Ryan said. “So we have to focus on testing the right people, we have to focus on maximizing the tests in the clusters, and we have to focus on the quality of the tests, and the speed of the coverage. “
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said an international mission organizing the agency to travel to China to investigate the virus’ origins would go to Wuhan, where the first infections were discovered late last year. . Tedros added that a previous team that went to Beijing in July had been in contact with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
(Report by Stephanie Nebahay in Geneva and John Miller in Zurich, written by Josephine Mason in London, edited by Alexandra Hudson)
