TLTP
\nNEW YORK
\nThe World Health Organisation (WHO) has come forward to calm things down amid the anxiety over a new potentially \u2018highly infectious\u2019 Covid-19 strain found in the UK, saying it is not that different from other coronavirus strains.
\nThe UN health agency chief said that scientists have been working to understand new Covid-19 variants that have been reported in South Africa and the United Kingdom. \u201cThe bottom line is that we need to suppress transmission of all SARS-CoV-2 viruses as quickly as we can\u201d, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a regular press briefing. \u201cThe more we allow it to spread, the more opportunity it has to change\u201d, he added.
\nIn early 2021, $4.6 billion in additional funding will be needed to purchase COVID-19 vaccines for at least 20 per cent of low and lower middle income countries, according to the WHO chief.
\n\u201cThis will ensure health workers and those at highest risk of severe disease are vaccinated, which is the fastest way to stabilize health systems and economies and stimulate a truly global recovery\u201d, he said.
\n\u201cThere is zero evidence that the new coronavirus variant increases severity of the disease,\u201d the WHO\u2019s Health Emergencies Programme Chief Mike Ryan said, citing data received from British scientists.
\nThe risks faced by the people that catch this particular strain of the virus are pretty much the same as odds faced by other people suffering from Covid-19. According to the WHO, it is neither more aggressive, nor any deadlier than the other strains.
\nIt does seem to be spreading somewhat easier, the health watchdog admitted. Still, its contagiousness appears to be nothing out of the ordinary and it is still much less infectious than diseases such as mumps.
\nThe new strain would also hardly affect the efficacy of drugs and vaccines developed against Covid-19, the WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan said.
\n\u201cSo far, even though we have seen a number of changes, a number of mutations, none has made a significant impact on \u2026 the susceptibility of the virus to any of the currently used therapeutics, drugs or the vaccines under development,\u201d she said.
\nThe WHO officials also described a flurry of travel bans to and from the UK imposed by some two dozen nations across the world as a move taken out of abundance of caution.
\n\u201cWe have to find a balance. It\u2019s very important to have transparency, it\u2019s very important to tell the public the way it is, but it\u2019s also important to get across that this is a normal part of virus evolution,\u201d Ryan said, while still calling this decision \u201cprudent.\u201d
\nThe WHO expects to receive some more data on the new Covid-19 strain in the coming days, including on the immune response the human organism provides to the new virus.
\nStatements from the WHO come after the discovery of a new Covid-19 strain provoked some sort of a panic in Europe and beyond. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the new mutation is allegedly 70 percent more contagious, as he announced strict \u2018Tier 4\u2019 lockdown for the areas that saw a sharp rise in new infections.
\nFollowing the announcement, many nations, including the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, France, Germany, Poland and Russia suspended all travel to and from the UK. Other countries like Argentina and Chile soon followed suit, while Turkey and Saudi Arabia went further and cut all foreign travel at all.
\nMeanwhile, top German virologist Christian Drosten said that the panic over the new strain was apparently premature, since there was no hard evidence suggesting it was indeed that highly contagious or that it was responsible for the UK\u2019s sharp rise in new cases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TLTP NEW YORK The World Health Organisation (WHO) has come forward to calm things down amid the anxiety over a new potentially \u2018highly infectious\u2019 Covid-19 strain found in the UK, saying it is not that different from other coronavirus strains. The UN health agency chief said that scientists have been working to understand new Covid-19 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-163774","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n