“It is plausible that the region is nearing the end of the pandemic,” said Hans Kluge, the World Health Organization (WHO) regional director for Europe.
The omicron variant of the coronavirus, from which 60% of Europeans could be infected before March, It may be the end of the pandemic in the region, the WHO director for Europe considered on Sunday.
“It is plausible that the region is approaching the end of the pandemic”Hans Kluge, regional director of the World Health Organization (WHO) for Europe, told AFP, although he called for caution, given the versatility of the virus.
“As soon as the omicron wave subsides, there will be global immunity for a few weeks and months, either thanks to the vaccine or because people will have been immunized by the infection, and also a decrease due to seasonality”, he considered.
WHO is waiting “a period of calm before the possible return of covid-19 towards the end of the year, but not necessarily the return of the pandemic”.
In South Africa, where the omicron variant was first detected, new cases have been falling in the last four weeks.
Along the same lines, the White House adviser on the fight against the pandemic in the United States, Anthony Fauci, said on Sunday that there could be a “turn” in the situation in the country.
There is no “endemic era”
But nevertheless, Europe is not in an “endemic era”, which would allow the virus to be compared to that of a seasonal flu, stressed the head of the WHO.
“Endemic means […] that we can foresee what is going to happen; this virus has surprised more than once. So we have to be carefulKluge insisted.
Not only is the Delta variant still circulating, but new ones could emerge.
“We will be much more resistant, even in the face of new variants,” Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, said on Sunday on French network LCI.
“We will be ready to adapt vaccines if necessary, particularly those using messenger RNA, to adapt them to deal with a virulent variant,” he said.
In the WHO European Region, which includes 53 countries, some of which are in Central Asia, the organization estimates that 60% of the inhabitants could have been infected by omicron between now and March 1.
In the 27 Member States of the EU, as well as in Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, this variant, which appeared at the end of November and is more contagious than Delta but less virulent, especially among those vaccinated, is now the dominant one, according to the European health agency.
With an exponential increase in infections, the director of the WHO European office insisted on the need to change public policies to “minimize disruption and (…) protect vulnerable people.”
The goal, according to Kluge, is now to stabilize the health situation.
“Stabilizing means that the health system is no longer overwhelmed by covid-19 and can continue to provide essential health services, which unfortunately have been greatly disrupted, such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases and immunization,” he stressed. (I)
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