As World waits for vaccine, WHO warns against pursuing herd immunity to stop Coronavirus
WHO warns against herd immunity: WHO chief’s statement comes on back of argument by some researchers that allowing COVID-19 to spread in populations that are not vulnerable will help build up herd immunity and is a more realistic way to stop the pandemic.
New Delhi: As the multinational companies across countries vie for developing Coronavirus vaccine, the World Health Organization (WHO) hopes to see an effective vaccine by early 2021.
“As you know, we have about 40 vaccine candidates now in some stage of clinical trials, and 10 of them are in the phase three trials, which are the late-stage clinical trials, which will tell us about both the efficacy and the safety. So, the best we could make a guess or predict, looking at when a trial started and when it is likely to have enough data to submit to the regulators, is [at] earliest from December of 2020 into the early part of 2021,” Soumya Swaminathan, WHO chief scientist said.
Meanwhile, the global body has also warned against toying with the idea that herd immunity could be a realistic strategy to stop the COVID-19 pandemic.
Addressing media in London, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, such proposals as simply unethical.
He said, herd immunity is achieved by protecting people from a virus, not by exposing them to it.
WHO chief noted that to obtain herd immunity from a highly infectious disease such as measles, for example, about 95 per cent of the population must be immunized.
WHO chief’s statement comes on back of argument by some researchers that allowing COVID-19 to spread in populations that are not vulnerable will help build up herd immunity and is a more realistic way to stop the pandemic.
WHO chief said that too little is known about immunity to COVID-19 to know if herd immunity is even achievable.
Highest Covid-19 numbers in last 4 days
Last four days have been seen increasing Covid-19 numbers especially in American and Europe, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told media persons.
“We’re now seeing an increase in the number of reported cases of COVID-19, especially in Europe and the Americas, Each of the last four days has been the highest number of cases reported so far,” Tedros told a press conference.
According to the WHO chief, some cities have been reporting an increase in hospitalizations as well.