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Monday, February 17, 2025

COVID: Omicron variant spreading at unprecedented rate, says WHO

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1160 days ago
20211215
Health workers administer booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccine at a temporary vaccine center in Colombo, Sri Lanka [Chamila Karunarathne/EPA-EFE]

Health workers administer booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccine at a temporary vaccine center in Colombo, Sri Lanka [Chamila Karunarathne/EPA-EFE]

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGEN­CIES

 

● WHO chief says the new strain was de­tect­ed in at least 77 na­tions and was like­ly al­ready in most coun­tries ●

 

(AL JAZEERA) — The World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion has warned that the coro­n­avirus vari­ant Omi­cron was spread­ing at a rate not seen with pre­vi­ous strains and was like­ly present in most coun­tries.

The dis­cov­ery of Omi­cron was first an­nounced in No­vem­ber by sci­en­tists in South Africa, which was the first to ex­pe­ri­ence a surge in COVID-19 dri­ven by the new vari­ant.

“Sev­en­ty-sev­en coun­tries have now re­port­ed cas­es of Omi­cron, and the re­al­i­ty is that Omi­cron is prob­a­bly in most coun­tries, even if it hasn’t been de­tect­ed yet,” WHO chief Tedros Ad­hanom Ghe­breye­sus told re­porters dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing in Gene­va on Tues­day.

INTERACTIVE- COVID19 - How Omicron compares. Image courtesy Al Jazeera.

INTERACTIVE- COVID19 - How Omicron compares. Image courtesy Al Jazeera.

“Omi­cron is spread­ing at a rate we have not seen with any pre­vi­ous vari­ant.”

The WHO chief al­so lament­ed that some peo­ple were dis­miss­ing Omi­cron as a mild vari­ant.

“Sure­ly, we have learned by now that we un­der­es­ti­mate this virus at our per­il. Even if Omi­cron does cause less se­vere dis­ease, the sheer num­ber of cas­es could once again over­whelm un­pre­pared health sys­tems.”

The dis­cov­ery of Omi­cron trig­gered wor­ries that it could cause an­oth­er surge in glob­al in­fec­tions, lead­ing many coun­tries to im­pose trav­el re­stric­tions on sev­er­al south­ern African na­tions.

 

Boost­er shots

 

The WHO chief said the UN health agency sup­port­ed giv­ing COVID-19 vac­cine boost­ers, as long as the dis­tri­b­u­tion of shots was pri­ori­tised and fair.

“Let me be very clear: WHO is not against boost­ers. We’re against in­equity. Our main con­cern is to save lives, every­where. It’s re­al­ly quite sim­ple: The pri­or­i­ty in every coun­try, and glob­al­ly, must be to pro­tect the least pro­tect­ed, not the most pro­tect­ed,” he said.

Tedros said the emer­gence of Omi­cron has prompt­ed some coun­tries to ini­ti­ate their COVID-19 boost­er pro­grammes for their en­tire adult pop­u­la­tions de­spite lack­ing ev­i­dence for the ef­fec­tive­ness of boost­ers against the Omi­cron strain.

Twitter thread courtesy World Health Organisation (WHO).

Twitter thread courtesy World Health Organisation (WHO).

“WHO is con­cerned that such pro­grammes will re­peat the COVID-19 vac­cine hoard­ing we saw this year and ex­ac­er­bate in­equity. It’s clear that as we move for­ward, boost­ers could play an im­por­tant role, es­pe­cial­ly for those at high­est risk of se­vere dis­ease death.

He not­ed that 41 coun­tries had still not been able to vac­ci­nate 10 per­cent of their pop­u­la­tions, and 98 coun­tries have not reached 40 per­cent.

More­over, the WHO chief said there were sig­nif­i­cant in­equities be­tween pop­u­la­tion groups in the same coun­try when it came to vac­ci­na­tions.

“If we end in­equity, we end the pan­dem­ic. If we al­low in­equity to con­tin­ue, we al­low the pan­dem­ic to con­tin­ue,” Tedros warned.

COVID-19HealthUnited Nations


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