The World Health Organization (WHO) Emergency Committee today anticipated that the covid-19 pandemic will last for a long time and therefore efforts to contain it worldwide are needed.
According to official data from the WHO, the pandemic has already caused 675.060 deaths and infected almost 17,4 million people worldwide.
The group of scientists, which met by videoconference on Friday, assessed the evolution of the covid-19 pandemic, taking into account all the scientific information that emerged about the new coronavirus in the last three months, the date of the last meeting.
The WHO Emergency Committee is composed of 18 scientists from different countries.
"The pandemic is a health crisis that occurs once in a century and its effects will be felt in the following decades," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the Committee, according to a statement from the organization.
The official also took stock of what has happened, noting that “many countries that thought the worst was over are now facing new outbreaks, others that had been less affected are seeing cases and deaths increasing, as countries who had major outbreaks were able to control them”.
Among the main recommendations that the Emergency Committee addressed to the WHO is the need to continue to support countries with weaker medical services, as well as the need to continue to push forward ongoing research to find one or more treatments and vaccines for covid. -19.
The aim is that, when there is a vaccine, countries with fewer resources are not left out for inability to buy them.
In other words, defended the Committee, the distribution of vaccines should be as equitable as possible.
Currently, three potential vaccines (from the United States of America, England and China) are in phase three of clinical trials, to test their safety and efficacy.
WHO noted in this regard that it may be possible for a vaccine to be ready for commercialization “in the first half of 2021”.
With regard to travel, the Committee indicated that countries should take proportionate measures and advise citizens on the basis of risks, evaluating their information on a regular basis.
On the other hand, it recommended that health services be strengthened to allow the identification of new cases and tracing of contacts.
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