THE ESSENTIAL
- Since the start of the recall campaign, 28,210,956 people have received a third dose of the anti-Covid vaccine.
- In addition, since the start of the vaccination campaign in France, 53,239,828 people have received at least one injection (i.e. 79% of the total population) and 52,004,661 people now have a complete vaccination schedule (i.e. 77.1% of the total population).
Today, only two diseases have been completely eradicated from our planet: smallpox and rinderpest. Could Covid-19 have the same fate, and if so under what conditions?
Animal tank
“For this, we must ensure that it does not have an animal reservoir, that is to say an animal species through which the virus circulates discreetly and freely, and from which humans will re-infect during contact with it “, explains Christophe Batejat to Trust My Science, deputy head of the Emergency Biological Intervention Unit at the Pasteur Institute and of the “Environment and infectious risks” research and expertise unit.
“We can vaccinate animals, if necessary, to stop this transmission. This is for example what has been done for rabies in France, and the mass vaccination of foxes. Currently, knowledge on this subject for SARS -CoV-2 are poor, and that is the whole point of the new group of experts of the World Health Organization, and SAGO, which will have to look into the question “, he continues.
For Pr Claire Andréjak, pulmonologist at the Amiens-Picardie University Hospital and head of a pneumo-infectiology research group (GREPI), it is more likely that Covid-19 will turn into a banal disease. “Sras-cov-2 will not disappear, we will live with it. If Omicron is indeed very contagious and not very pathogenic, it could replace Delta, allow the long-awaited collective immunity and become a classic winter virus, which we can let circulate because the serious cases will remain limited. Of course, the hindsight is still too low, and these encouraging trends remain to be confirmed! “, explains the doctor.
An endemic disease?
According to one study published in January 2021, SARS-CoV-2 will indeed become endemic, that is to say that it will disappear in certain regions but will continue to circulate in other places. “I think Covid-19 will be eliminated from some countries, but with a permanent (and possibly seasonal) risk of reintroduction from places where vaccination coverage and public health measures have not been good enough “, Judge Christopher Dye, Epidemiologist at the University of Oxford.