Written By: Satata Karmakar | Updated : July 5, 2021 8:22 AM IST
Delta COVID-19 Variant Is Mutating, We Are In ‘Very Dangerous’ Period: Warns WHO Chief
The world is witnessing a very "dangerous period of the pandemic" and the situation may worsen in the next few months due to the rapid transmission of the Delta variant of coronavirus, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned. He said that countries with low vaccination coverage, terrible scenes of hospitals overflowing are again becoming the norm. Addressing a press meet, Ghebreyesus said, "Compounded by more transmissible variants, like Delta, which is quickly becoming the dominant strain in many countries, we are in a very dangerous period of this pandemic." He further added, "But no country is out of the woods yet. The Delta variant is dangerous and continues to evolve and mutate, requiring constant evaluation and careful adjustment of the public health response."
Noting that the Delta variant has been detected in at least 98 countries and is spreading quickly in countries with low and high vaccination coverage, he said there are essentially two ways for countries to push back against new surges Public health and social measures like:
The countries which are at high risk must also ensure that the population is following other safety pandemic protocols such as:
The countries should be medically equipped for handling emergencies (oxygen cylinder, tests, treatments, and vaccines, etc)
"This is the best way to slow the pandemic, save lives, drive a truly global economic recovery, and along the way prevent further dangerous variants from getting the upper hand. By the end of this September, we're calling on leaders to vaccinate at least 10 per cent of people in all countries," he said.
As new manufacturing hubs including mRNA vaccines are being developed, the WHO chief said this could be accelerated by companies openly sharing technology and know-how. "In particular, I urge those companies BioNTech, Pfizer, and Moderna to share their know-how so that we can speed up the development of new products. The sooner we start building more vaccine hubs and upping global vaccine capacity, the sooner we can diminish deadly surges," he said. The Delta variant, first detected in India, is now being reported in nearly 100 countries, which is "likely an underestimate" and the highly transmissible strain is expected to rapidly outcompete other variants and become dominant globally over the coming months, WHO had said this week.
The COVID-19 Weekly Epidemiological Update published by WHO said that as of June 29, 2021, "96 countries have reported cases of the Delta variant, though this is likely an underestimate as sequencing capacities needed to identify variants are limited. A number of these countries are attributing surges in infections and hospitalizations to this variant." It said given the increase in transmissibility, the Delta variant is "expected to rapidly outcompete other variants and become the dominant variant over the coming months." WHO noted that the tools that exist today to combat the coronavirus including individual, community level-public health and social measures, infection prevention and control measures, that have been used since the beginning of the pandemic remain effective against current variants of concern, including the Delta variant.
(With inputs from Agencies)
