The risk of transmission is “high”, which makes it necessary to intensify prevention strategies.
The World Health Organization (WHO) warned today that the global risks posed by the omicron variant are “very high”, which is why it asked all governments to accelerate vaccination against COVID and strengthen surveillance measures against possible outbreaks of this derivative of the coronavirus.
The organization’s latest technical report, released today, considers that, taking into account the speed with which the variant develops new mutations potentially more resistant to vaccines and more contagious, the risk of transmission is “high”, which forces to intensify prevention strategies.
“There may be new waves of COVID-19 with serious consequences, depending on many factors, such as the place where these waves occur,” warns the report, published on the same day that the WHO inaugurated an extraordinary assembly to promote the negotiation of a international treaty on preparedness and response to future pandemics.
Accelerating vaccination against COVID-19, “especially among the population at risk that remains unvaccinated”, is one of the measures that must be taken before the arrival of the new variant, highlighted the WHO, which also asked all countries that report possible cases or outbreaks associated with omicron.
Punishment for those who sounded the alarm
In this sense, the director general of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, regretted at the opening of the WHO assembly that the two countries that first reported the new variant, South Africa and Botswana, are being “penalized” with flight cancellations. , quarantines its citizens in other countries and other measures.
“South Africa and Botswana must be thanked, not penalized,” said Tedros in a long speech in which he denounced that after what happened there is a danger that other countries are afraid to alert the world to possible new threats, for fear of the economic consequences.
In its technical report, the WHO does not openly recommend that flights to countries or regions where the omicron variant has been located be banned, and only indicates that national authorities “must use scientific bases when adjusting the measures in a timely manner. around international travel “.
He admits, in any case, that for now the cases of the variant, which have already been detected in four regions (Africa, Europe, the Middle East and East Asia), are related to the traveling flow.
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The director general of the WHO highlighted in his speech that it is not yet known whether the omicron variant is associated with greater ease of contagion or reinfection, more severe cases or greater resistance to vaccines, although he stressed that “scientists from all over the world they are working around the clock to answer these questions. “
The variant arose in the least immunized region
The Ethiopian expert also took the opportunity to denounce the fact that the new variant has emerged in Africa, the continent with the lowest vaccination rate against COVID-19, which confirms the warnings that the WHO has issued throughout the year about the dangers of forgetting some regions in the massive immunization campaign.
“As vaccine inequality continues, the virus will have opportunities to spread and evolve in ways that we cannot predict or prevent,” he warned.
Tedros recalled that 80 percent of the 8,000 million doses of vaccines have been administered in the world so far have gone to the G20 countries (the most industrialized and emerging economies), while the low-income ones, mostly in Africa, have received only 0.6 percent of total vaccines.
More than a hundred countries in the world have not yet reached a vaccination rate of 40%, which the WHO wanted to reach in all territories before the end of this year, and probably half of them will not achieve it in the month left, predicted the head of the agency.
“We understand that each government has the responsibility to protect its people, it is natural, but equality in the distribution of vaccines is not a charitable act, it is something that interests all countries because no one can get out of this pandemic alone,” he stressed . (I)
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