WHO confirms that vaccinated and cured of COVID-19 can be infected by omicron

The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed today that there is robust evidence that people who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 or those who were infected in the past can contract the omicron variant, the spread of which is accelerating day by day around of the world.

At an exclusive press conference for the international press in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the information being analyzed about omicron indicates that this variant circulates faster than previous ones and that “It is likely that those vaccinated and those who have been cured of COVID become infected or reinfected.”

The person in charge called everyone to become aware of this situation a few days before the end of the year festivities, pointing out that it is better to cancel the celebrations now “and celebrate life tomorrow”, than “celebrate today and mourn tomorrow ”.

“This is very serious and we are very concerned (about omicron)”Tedros stressed, adding that reports indicating that this variant causes more moderate disease than delta (the predominant variant worldwide) may not be representative.

For this reason, he asked the governments to exercise maximum caution in the coming weeks and avoid events with the presence of many people and that could become super-spreaders of the virus.

On December 31, it will be two years since the WHO received the first notification of cases of pneumonia of unknown type detected in China, which turned out to be caused by a new coronavirus which has so far caused 5.5 million deaths and 272 million cases around the world.

In terms of infections and deaths, the second year of the pandemic was worse than the first, since in the last twelve months deaths rose to 3.3 million, which exceeds the accumulated deaths from malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS at the national level. world.

Tedros argued that if the world wants to end the acute phase of the pandemic in 2022, the problem of inequality between countries must be resolved in terms of access to the tools that exist to curb the disease. COVID-19, including vaccines, diagnostic tests and treatments.

He stated that the common goal should be that by the middle of next year 70% of the population of each country has been vaccinated (a goal that had been set for this end of the year).

The experts of the WHO said they are not against booster doses against COVID-19 nor do they deny the role they have, but they recalled that the decision of rich countries to offer them to their entire adult population works against risk groups in poor countries having access to vaccines for a first or second dose.

80% of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 They are people who have been vaccinated, according to data collected by the organization at the international level.

How often will you have to receive a vaccine against COVID-19 constitutes one of the great questions at this stage of the pandemic, in which the WHO He still cannot answer, although he has advanced that this will depend on a series of factors, such as the type of vaccine, since its effectiveness differs slightly from one product to another.

Other factors will be the future variants that appear and the individual’s own biology (age, underlying health problems and state of his immune system).

Studies continue to show that there is a reduction in immunity among vaccinated people for around six months.

“At the moment, we think that the booster vaccine should be for people with weak immune systems, for the elderly”, said WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan.

Ómicron has surprised scientists among other things because it was not thought that a more transmissible variant than delta could appear and because it does not come from a mutation of the latter, but from another lineage, which shows that “this virus is unpredictable.”

“We cannot predict the next variant, but surely (the virus) will continue to evolve and in the face of this, the only thing we can do is stop the transmission”Swaminathan stressed.

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