Covid pandemic very severe but ‘not necessarily the big one’, warns WHO

Dr Michael Ryan described the pandemic as a ‘wake-up call’

Coronavirus has wreaked havoc around the world but this pandemic "is not necessarily the big one,” Dr Michael Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organisation’s health emergencies programme, warned on Monday. 

Dr Ryan went on to describe the pandemic as a “wake-up call”.  

“It has spread around the world extremely quickly and has affected every corner of the planet. But this is not necessarily the big one. This virus is very transmissible and it kills people and deprives people of loved ones,” said Dr Ryan. “But its current case fatality is reasonably low in comparison to other diseases. This is a wake-up call,” he said.

This week marks the one-year anniversary since WHO learned of cases of “pneumonia with unknown cause” in Wuhan, which was later found to be coronavirus. The virus has claimed over 1.7 million lives across the globe.

The emergencies chief also stated the main objective of the first phase of vaccine rollout, as he cautioned that a decision to move towards elimination or eradication of the virus was a “moon-shot” because it requires a much higher degree of efficiency and effectiveness in the vaccination programme.  

“The main object of the vaccine and the first rollout will be to prevent severe illness and to prevent deaths, to protect front line health workers and to protect the most vulnerable people in our society,” he said.  

“The second phase is then looking at how will this vaccine affect the transmission,” he said and elaborated that scientists at the moment do not know about the length of protection. He was, however, optimistic that they “should be able to get a good control over the virus.”  

The likely scenario would be that the virus becomes another low-level threat with the global vaccination programme, he said. Citing the examples of polio and measles, Dr Ryan added, “The existence of a vaccine, even a high efficacy, is no guarantee of eliminating or eradicating an infectious disease. That is a very high bar for us to get over."

“First of all, we have to focus on saving lives, getting good control on the epidemic so that things can return to normal and then we will deal with the moonshot of potentially being able to eliminate and eradicate the virus,” he said.  

The WHO emergencies chief also hailed South Africa and Britain for their “systematic surveillance and systematic genetic sequencing,” over the emergence of the new strain of the virus as he urged that they should not be “unnecessarily punished for openness and transparency and for pursuing science.” 

Over 40 countries in Europe, Asia, South America, the Caribbean and the Middle East have imposed bans or restricted travel from the UK, since the emergence of the variant.