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Sunday, September 26, 2021

Delta variant is not the last: WHO

THE WORLD Health Organization (WHO) warned that the highly transmissible Delta variant of the Covid-19 will not be the last variant of concern and called on countries and peoples to stay vigilant.

Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, Technical Lead Covid-19 of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, said: “Frankly, the world is not stepping up. It's about all of these other factors. There’s all this talk about planning about the surge that’s going to happen and is happening right now. It happened in Brazil. It happened in India and is happening right now in the United States. In my home country where they have high vaccination coverage.” 

“The Delta variant will not be the last variant of concern. There are others that are circulating the surge of not only preparing for vaccinations, but improving our surveillance systems getting tests out there. So people know where the virus is circulating,” she said. 

Van Kerkhove, an American infectious disease epidemiologist, said people should follow the strict public health protocols. “Sure that we handle inappropriately manage mass gatherings or postpone them, make sure that we fix ventilation in our building. Make sure that our workplaces have plans and that people who have to go to work, can go to work,” she said. 

She said vaccination will help prevent the spread of the deadly respiratory virus and save people’s lives. “Right now, we have tools that can save people’s lives. That can suppress transmission which minimizes, which reduces the opportunities for this virus to evolve for variants to emerge, but we need people to step up.” 

“We need global leadership, taking a stand and showing that we can take control over this fire. There is a false sense of security that if your population reaches a certain percentage that you will be safe,” she added, referring to herd immunity or reaching to vaccinate 70% of the population. 

“Remember Alpha (variant) varying, across Europe. Remember Gamma, remember Beta. Now, Delta is showing us that we cannot sit on our laurels. We have to remain vigilant and do what we can to not only get vaccine equity around the world. But to ensure that we stop this virus from circulating. We still have the power right now to be able to drive that transmission down. I think we can and I think countries have shown us over and over that we can, we just really need to step up,” said Van Kerkhove, who specializes in emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. (Zamboanga Post)



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