By Emma Farge, GENEVA Switzerland
The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 could become endemic like HIV, the
World Health Organization said on Wednesday, warning against any attempt to
predict how long it would keep circulating and calling for a “massive effort”
to counter it.WHO emergencies expert, Mike Ryan
“It is important to put this on the
table: this virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities, and
this virus may never go away,” WHO emergencies expert Mike Ryan told an online
briefing.
“I think it is important we are
realistic and I don’t think anyone can predict when this disease will disappear,”
he added. “I think there are no promises in this and there are no dates. This
disease may settle into a long problem, or it may not be.”
However, he said the world had some
control over how it coped with the disease, although this would take a “massive
effort” even if a vaccine was found — a prospect he described as a “massive
moonshot”.
More than 100 potential vaccines are
being developed, including several in clinical trials, but experts have
underscored the difficulties of finding vaccines that are effective against
coronaviruses.
Ryan noted that vaccines exist for
other illnesses, such as measles, that have not been eliminated.
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom
Ghebreyesus added: “The trajectory is in our hands, and it’s everybody’s business,
and we should all contribute to stop this pandemic.”
Ryan said “very significant control”
of the virus was required in order to lower the assessment of risk, which he
said remained high at the “national, regional and global levels”.
Governments around the world are
struggling with the question of how to reopen their economies while still
containing the virus, which has infected almost 4.3 million people, according
to a Reuters tally, and led to over 291,000 deaths.
The European Union pushed on Wednesday
for a gradual reopening of borders within the bloc that have been shut by the
pandemic, saying it was not too late to salvage some of the summer tourist
season while still keeping people safe.
But public health experts say extreme
caution is needed to avoid new outbreaks. Ryan said opening land borders was
less risky than easing air travel, which was a “different challenge”.
“We need to get into the mindset that it is going to take some time to come out of this pandemic,” WHO epidemiologist Maria van Kerkhove told the briefing. - Reuters
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