The coronavirus has so far claimed more than 6.3 lakh lives across the world. (File)
London:
WHO Chief Scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan on Friday warned that the concept of ‘herd immunity’, or much of the population developing antibodies to COVID-19, is still a long way off and may be accelerated by a vaccine.
During a live social media event hosted by the World Health Organization from Geneva on Friday, the scientist said more waves of infection would be needed to reach a stage of natural immunity. Therefore, she warned, at least for next year, the world must be “prepared” to do everything possible to keep the novel coronavirus at bay while scientists work on vaccines.
Meanwhile, the therapies will help keep death rates low and allow people to go on with their lives.
“For this concept of collective immunity, 50 to 60% of the population must have this immunity to be able to really break these chains of transmission,” explained Dr. Swaminathan.
“It’s much easier to do with a vaccine; we can do it faster and without people getting sick and dying. So, it is better to do it this way, to get the herd immunity through natural infection. We would have several waves [of infection] and unfortunately also the mortality that we are seeing, ”she said.
She added, “Over time, people will start to develop natural immunity. We now know from studies that have been done in many affected countries that 5-10% of the population typically have developed antibodies. In some places it has been higher than that, up to 20 percent.
“As there are waves of this infection going through countries, people will develop antibodies and these people will hopefully be immune for a while and therefore also act as barriers and brakes to the spread of this infection. infection, ”Dr Swaminathan, an Indian pediatrician and globally recognized tuberculosis and HIV researcher, said.
The scientist, who was addressing a range of questions about vaccines and coronavirus therapies, said that for the foreseeable future, it’s important to focus on the “right thing,” such as public health measures that are known to operate while the world waits for a vaccine.
“Even if the clinical trials are successful and we have a few vaccines by the end of this year, we still need the hundreds of billions of doses, which will take time,” she said.
Elaborating on vaccine development, the chief scientist said there were more than 200 candidates at some stage of development, highlighting the extraordinary speed at which science was evolving around understanding the new coronavirus.
“Vaccine development is normally a fairly long and laborious process … the more candidates we have, the more likely we are to be successful,” she said.
“Most people who recover from COVID-19 develop neutralizing antibodies, which means that a vaccine has a good chance of offering protective immunity,” she said.
Asked about the frightening prospect of never getting a COVID-19 vaccine, Dr Swaminathan admitted that we need to consider the possibility that we need to ‘learn to live with this virus’.
“Right now it sounds scary; what will we do if we don’t have a vaccine? But it’s a possibility, there’s no 100% guarantee that we will. Hopefully we will. But we now know what measures we can take to minimize the spread of this infection, such as maintaining distance, washing hands, respiratory hygiene and wearing masks ”, a- she declared.
The coronavirus has so far claimed more than 6.3 lakh lives with more than 15.5 million confirmed cases worldwide, according to the COVID-19 tracker at Johns Hopkins University.
