RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) said on Monday, August 3rd, that a vaccine or cure for Covid-19 may not become a reality. According to the organization, there are 164 vaccines in development: 25 are in their clinical and 139 in their pre-clinical phase.
“There’s no silver bullet at the moment, and there might never be,” said the Director-General. He added that at the moment there are immunizations in the final testing phase, but there is a chance that none of them will offer the expected protection.
“There is concern that we may not have a vaccine that works. Or that the protection offered might last only a few months, nothing more”. Tedros said this is not possible to know until the tests are completed. However, he said that there is still hope and that the studies are being developed at an unprecedented speed.
He also made it clear that the majority of the population remains vulnerable to infection even in countries that have dealt with serious outbreaks. Overall, according to the organization, serological studies show that fewer than ten percent of those tested have developed antibodies against the virus, which means they had the disease. The percentage may be higher among some groups, such as healthcare professionals.
The W.H.O. has once again reiterated the need to implement all available effective measures to suppress transmission of the novel coronavirus until a vaccine or drug is available.
The organization suggests that countries conduct case detection, contact tracing, and isolation of those infected. For individuals, it recommends social distancing, constant hand sanitizing, wearing masks where appropriate, and covering nose and mouth when sneezing or coughing. “If we do it all, if we take a comprehensive approach, we can change this,” said the Director-General.
On Friday, July 31st, the organization’s emergency committee met and maintained the global public health emergency category for the pandemic. On Monday, the Director-General recalled that this is the first time there has been a worldwide outbreak of a coronavirus “It combines two dangerous factors: it spreads fast and at the same time it kills.”
Covid-19 lethality rate
The W.H.O. technical response leader to the disease, Maria Van Kerkhove, said that only 0.6 percent of people infected with coronavirus die. “It may not seem like much. But it’s a very high figure when considering a virus that is easily transmitted,” she said after explaining that scientific studies have reached this average.
Michael Ryan, director of the agency’s emergency program, added that the lethality rate for influenza A, which caused the 2009 pandemic (0.1 percent of those infected), was much lower, with only one death per 10,000 patients.
Although the percentage of deaths among diagnosed cases is higher, almost four percent – 17.5 million infections and 680,000 deaths worldwide – Maria explained that the real mortality rate of Covid-19 must be lower because many mild cases are not detected.
Source: O Estado de S. Paulo