Geneva, Switzerland:
The World Health Organization’s emergency committee named Friday for globally-ramped up coronavirus sequencing research in order to combat troubling new variants stalking the globe.
The meeting was dragged forward by two weeks for urgent talks on the emerging, seemingly more contagious strains of the virus, as the death count from the Covid-19 pandemic topped two million, according to an AFP count.
The emergency committee came out against nations requiring proof of vaccination from incoming international travellers.
However, it stated it was time to overhaul suggestions on travel guidance provided what was now identified about the virus.
The WHO stated it wanted Covid-19 vaccination beneath way in each and every nation inside the next one hundred days, amid issues that wealthy nations are hogging the 1st batches coming off the production lines.
And though it sounded the alarm on a new virus variant circulating in Brazil, the WHO warned that the present infection spikes in some nations could be blamed on lapses in behaviour rather than basically the new mutations.
Variants and vigilance
The lately-found variants can only be identified by sequencing their genetic code — an evaluation that is not doable everywhere.
“On variants, (the committee) called for a global expansion of genomic sequencing and sharing of data, along with greater scientific collaboration to address critical unknowns,” the WHO stated in a statement right after the virtual meeting.
The committee also named on the WHO to come up with a standardised program for naming new variants to retain them geographically and politically neutral, in a bid to keep away from stigmatisation.
In its epidemiological bulletin earlier this week, the WHO stated the coronavirus mutation 1st located in Britain had spread to 50 territories, though a comparable South African-identified strain has now been located in 20.
A third mutation originating in the Brazilian Amazon, is at present becoming analysed and could influence the immune response, according to the WHO.
The predicament in northern Brazil’s Amazonas state, and specifically its capital Manaus, has deteriorated drastically, with hospitals pushed to the limit stated WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan.
“If this continues, we are going to see a wave that is greater than what was a catastrophic wave in April and May in Amazonas,” he told a press conference in Geneva.
But Ryan stressed it was “too easy to just lay the blame on the variant” — saying men and women and authorities will need to accept their share of duty for their actions which have been driving up transmission.
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s Covid-19 technical lead, added: “This virus is dangerous on its own — variant or not.”
‘Defining moment’
On travel, the emergency committee encouraged that nations do not call for proof of vaccination from incoming travellers, provided that the influence of vaccines on decreasing transmission is not however identified and the availability of vaccines remains restricted.
Committee chairman Didier Houssin stated that provided the disparity of countries’ approaches to visas, quarantine and travel bans, it is “really time” for the WHO to reassess what guidance could be supplied on international air, land and sea travel.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated the planet was at a “defining moment in the pandemic”, as he named for vaccines to be distributed equitably across the globe.
Some 46 nations have began their vaccination campaigns, of which 38 are higher-earnings nations.
“I want to see vaccination under way in every country in the next 100 days so that health workers and those at high risk are protected first,” Tedros stated.
The 1st cluster of Covid-19 instances was found in December 2019 in Wuhan in China.
A WHO group of specialists arrived in Wuhan on Thursday to begin an investigation into the origins of the virus.
“We may never find who the patient zero was,” stated Van Kerkhove.
()