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New Warning Regarding The Next COVID Variant From WHO for 2022

New Warning Regarding The Next COVID Variant From WHO

A new warning regarding the next COVID variant came from the World Health Organisation (WHO) chief, who noted that inequitable access to vaccines and test results in many countries combined with high transmission is creating a ripe situation for newly emerging variants. It was also warned that the longer such inequity persists, the longer the pandemic will last. 

The director-general of WHO Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the pandemic is hampering important economic goals, stating, “With prolonged economic uncertainty and increased risks of long-term economic damage, the pandemic has seriously slowed progress toward sustainable development, a crucial factor for long-term economic stability.”

 In addition, the WHO chief said closer collaboration between the health and finance sectors is essential.

The majority of countries do not perform genomic sequencing

SOUMYA SWAMINATHAN, WHO chief scientist, said that high costs of DNA sequencing prevent roughly one-third of countries from sequencing COVID-19. The method to identify new variations of the virus is by sequencing COVID-19.

The cost of the equipment is high because the reagents are difficult to obtain locally, so they have to be imported. She stated that the very fact that countries lack this expertise is preventing them from developing it, during Devex’s Prescription for Progress event on Tuesday.

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Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have seen substantial progress on genomic sequencing, but even the current levels of sequencing are not up to the challenge

The Coronavirus is having an Olympics

The current situation is like the Olympics for viruses now, with each sub-lineage, each sub-variant, each strain competing to outperform the others, and that process will continue, and as long as transmission continues, selective pressure will persist on the virus. That’s what WHO chief Mike Ryan said about Omicron and the appearance of new COVID strains earlier this week. As part of his view, WHO’s Maria Van Kerkhove added, the increased transmissibility of Omicron has to do with its mutations, and another feature that has now been noticed is its ability to escape the immune system. 

It is something we are considering for the future that could be happening in terms of the future variants and what might happen, such as more transmissible variants, which is likely to occur, but we’re also concerned about the potential for variants to have more immune escape capabilities.”

The risk of reinfection would rise or the risk of breakthrough infection could increase in the future if that were true.

In the week ending last week, there were 75,000 deaths due to COVID

During an address, Tedros stated that the lower severity of Omicron is driving a false narrative in many countries that the pandemic is over. This comes at a time when survival rates for COVID-related illnesses remain high. 

COVID

The United States reported 75,000 deaths from COVID during the last week alone, even though the number of outbreaks was much lower than the previous weeks. Despite this, WHO officials have cautioned that the infection rate is low since the rate of testing has declined. 

According to the latest COVID report, there were only 16 million new cases last week. 

 

Despite the perfect circumstances for the emergence of more deadly and transmissible variants of the virus, the deadly coronavirus pandemic will end when we decide to call it a day. World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that during a Live session at Munich Security Conference, which occurred on Monday. Putting an end to the pandemic must be the focus of the world, he said.

 

“I’m sure when we met two years ago, when we all were struggling to cope with the spread of this new virus, that none of us would have imagined we would now be entering the third year of this pandemic,” Ghebreyesus said concerning the pandemic that has exploded, receded, then exploded again.

He cautioned that more harmful, more transmissible varieties of Covid are likely to emerge in the future, but he noted that the pandemic can be contained as a global health emergency this year.

WHO chief warns that a combination of the lower severity of the Omicron variant and high vaccination coverage in some countries may lead to the dangerous narrative that the pandemic is over.

He replied, “But it isn’t.”

No one can be complacent when 70,000 people die a week from a preventable and treatable disease. No one can be complacent when 83% of Africans have yet to receive a vaccine. Nobody can be complacent when health systems are struggling to deal with the caseload. No one can be complacent when there is a highly transmissible virus circulating almost unchecked, with too little surveillance to track its evolution.

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Despite the grim outlook, there is some good news. “We have the tools, knowledge, and need to end this pandemic quickly,” Dr Ghebreyesus said, adding, “We are particularly calling on all countries to fill the $16 billion gap in financing for the ACT Accelerator to make vaccines, testing, treatments, and personal protective equipment available everywhere.”

The ACT Accelerator, or the Access to Covid-19 Tools Accelerator, brings together expertise from both the public and private sectors and from institutions around the globe to assist in the rapid development and equitable distribution of Covid diagnostics, treatments, and vaccines.

The world is not all gloomy

As a result, the chief of the global health body has proposed a three-pronged approach to help stop the flu epidemic.

Stronger global governance: Instead of confusion and incoherence that fuels pandemics, we need cooperation and collaboration to combat common threats. Stronger systems and tools: We need rapid detection, prevention, and response capabilities to prevent, detect, and contain epidemics and pandemics. Stronger financing: It is obvious that resources are needed both locally and globally to strengthen global health security.

As he concluded his nine-minute address, Tedros Ghebreyesus reiterated the question – “when will this flu outbreak end”. It is over when we “choose to”, he said, adding that “it is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of our choices.”

COVID

As a result of the Coronavirus pandemic, which first broke out in China in 2019, infections swept the world and quarantined it in less than six months. After evolving and mutating, the virus has killed millions of people worldwide and infected thousands more.

 

Globally, the use of the Omicron variant, which led to the third wave of the Coronavirus pandemic, has slowed down. Many countries are removing the restrictions they imposed to prevent the spread of the disease. However, a World Health Organization (WHO) official is expressing concerns about an Omicron sub-strain.

We are tracking multiple sub-lines of Omicron, which is a virus that is evolving. BA.1, BA.1.1, BA.2 and BA.3 are the most common types of concern. In a briefing on Thursday, WHO Covid-19 technical lead Maria Van Kerkhove said, “It is quite incredible how Omicron, the newest variant of concern, has surpassed Delta around the world.”. According to WHO, a video of the discussion was posted on Twitter.

There seems to be a tendency for most of the sequences to be from this sub-lineage BA.1. In addition, it appears that the proportion of sequences from BA.2 is increasing. In the tweet associated with the video, the WHO said almost 75,000 deaths have been reported as a result of Covid-19.

In addition, the WHO official pointed out that “BA.2 is more spreadable” than those of the other sub-lineages.

COVID

“We are monitoring” the danger of BA.2, Kerkhove said, “but we haven’t seen any evidence of it being more lethal than BA.1.”.

Lastly, the WHO official said that the condition of Omicron is not mild, but it is less severe than Delta. “Omicron continues to cause significant numbers of hospitalizations. It is also causing a significant number of deaths. Neither the common cold nor the influenza virus can cause it. Therefore, we should be extremely cautious at the moment,” said Kerkhove.

A tweet accompanying the WHO’s announcement indicated that almost 75,000 deaths were attributed to Covid-19 last week.

In the past few years, the WHO has recorded more than one in five new Omicron cases around the world.

The WHO said on Tuesday that a new wave of infections caused by the Omicron variant of the Coronavirus is moving towards the east of Europe, urging institutions to improve vaccination, among other measures.

The number of cases of Covid-19 has more than doubled in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Russia, and Ukraine in the past two weeks, WHO Regional Director for Europe, Hans Kluge, announced.

edited and proofread by nikita sharma 

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