The transformation of the pandemic in an endemic it will not necessarily be good news nor will it mean seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, said a senior official from the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday, who recalled that the objective is “that no one has to die” of covid-19.
“People talk about pandemic versus endemic, but malaria is endemic, just like HIV, and they kill hundreds of thousands of people, so endemic is not a good thing, it just means it’s here forever. What we have to get to is low levels of incidence of the disease, with a maximum of people vaccinated and that no one has to die from this (Covid-19), “said WHO Director of Health Emergencies Mike Ryan.
“That will be the end of the health emergency, the end of the pandemic,” he explained in a talk with other experts from the pharmaceutical sector and civil society within the framework of the Davos Agenda, a virtual event organized by the World Economic Forum .
Ryan, who is at the head of the team fighting to end the pandemic at the WHO, emphasized that the world will not be able to end the virus, since it has become a pandemic and “will become part of the ecosystem”, but what can be left behind is the international health emergency caused by covid-19.
“The issue (to be resolved) is deaths and hospitalizations, it is the alteration of our social, economic and political life, this is the tragedy. The virus is just a vehicle, what we have to consider is how society has reacted to it, with inequalities in access to health care and social inequality,” he said.
Access to vaccines
During the talk, dedicated to problem of access to vaccines that persists between high- and low-income countries, it was recalled that the COVAX platform -created to offer solutions to this situation- has overcome the barrier of 1,000 million doses distributed to developing countries, despite the obstacles it faced, in particular the ban on the export of vaccines by part of India, which he had planned to be his main supplier.
The director of GAVI, the alliance for vaccines and co-founder of COVAX with the WHO, Seth Berkley, pointed out that although the supply of vaccines has improved there could still be stumbling blocks in the next six months, in particular if vaccines for specific variants begin to be produced. of the coronavirus.
“We must be careful that if this happens it does not create a new situation of inequality and that the supply chain remains open”Berkley stressed.
The Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine producer, was the main supplier of Covax, but in the second quarter of the year it stopped its exports due to a government order, which diverted this production to its own population, which was facing a brutal wave of covid-19. That ban was lifted last October.
The CEO of the Serum Institute, Adar Poonawalla, said today that between last January and December his company produced 2,000 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, with which it signed a technology transfer agreement to produce the serum in its facilities.
“Supply capacity is no longer a problem and we are ready to support Africa and whoever needs it. We have doses available for you“said the executive.
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