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Recurrence of Coronavirus is Still Possible: WHO

Recurrence of Coronavirus is Still Possible: WHO

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Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, Feb 28: Even when cases of infection from Covid-19 has reached a low level in most parts of the world, the World Health Organisation (WHO) does not agree that the threat is all but over.

After the WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said earlier this month that the coronavirus “continues to be a public health emergency of international concern,” the former WHO scientist Soumya Swaminathan said on Tuesday that “a small risk” of the virus mutating to overcome immunity offered by various vaccines remained. “Continued surveillance is important,” she said.

Swaminathan also said the risk of getting a heart attack and contracting another disease is four to five per cent higher after getting Covid than after getting vaccinated. “It is well established that after Covid (the) risk of heart attacks, diabetes, and strokes goes up. The risk of getting a heart attack is four to five percent higher after Covid than getting it after vaccination,” she said. “Covid infection is itself a main risk factor for subsequent heart attacks,” she added.

The world has seen several mutated versions of the Covid-19 virus since the pandemic erupted three years ago; one of the more recent is the XBB.1.5 subvariant of the Omicron type that has been seen in increasing numbers in the United States, the United Kingdom, China, and Australia.

In December, the WHO had estimated that over 90 percent of the world’s population had gained some resistance to Covid-19 either through vaccination or due to infection. However, the organization warned that a troubling new variant could still emerge.

“WHO estimates that at least 90 percent of the world’s population now has some level of immunity to SARS-CoV-2, due to prior infection or from vaccination. We are much closer to being able to say that the emergency phase of the pandemic is over — but we’re not there yet,” Ghebreyesus had said.

 

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