The UK, South-African and Brazilian variants keep on making the World Health Organization worried. This Friday February 5, 2021 Director of WHO Europe said he was “worried” as for the effectiveness of vaccines on the different Covid-19 mutations.
“We must prepare” to other problematic mutations of the virus Director of WHO Europe Hans Kluge said. How? By strengthening sequencing even more. As for variants, he said: “It’s a cruel reminder that the virus still has the upper hand over humans, but it’s not a new virus, it’s an evolution of a virus trying to adapt to its human host”.
So, faced with the threat of Covid-19 variants, WHO urges Europe to “join forces” and accelerate vaccination. Even though the vaccination campaign has started in many countries, others unfortunately are not able to get their hands on the vaccine. Director of WHO Europe then called for unity suggesting wealthy countries to share their doses with poor countries, once a certain level of vaccination is met. “Maybe if EU countries achieve 20% vaccination of their population – 20%, that means the elderly, health workers, people with co-morbidities –, this could be the time to share vaccines”, he suggested.
According to AFP, at this stage, only 2.5% of the European Union population has been given the first injection of vaccine. “Usually competing pharmaceutical companies must unite their efforts to drastically increase production capacities, that’s what we need” he added.
What is next, then? “I’m honest: I think the tunnel is a bit longer than we thought in December, but it’s going to be a more manageable year” than last year, he said.
