“Biggest”: WHO warns that future pandemics could be worse than coronavirus – national

The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 1.7 million people, destroyed economies and pushed hospitals to the brink of collapse.

But the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that, despite its severity, the pandemic is not “necessarily the biggest.”

Speaking at a media conference on Monday, the head of the WHO’s emergency program, Dr Mark Ryan, said that if there was anything to be removed from the pandemic, it was that “we need to prepare for something that could be more severe in the future. . “

“This pandemic was very severe, spreading extremely fast around the world and affecting every corner of this planet,” Ryan said. “But this is not necessarily the biggest. This virus is highly transmissible and kills people, so many people have missed their loved ones. But the current fatality is quite low compared to other emerging diseases. This is a wake-up call. “

READ MORE: The next pandemic will be “more damaging” if lessons are not learned from COVID-19, says the panel

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He added that the threats will continue and, because our planet is so “fragile”, we must learn from the coronavirus pandemic and “get our act together”.

Ryan also said that there is a possibility of never eradicating COVID-19 – despite the recent launch of safe vaccines.

“The scenario is likely that the virus will become another endemic virus that will remain somewhat of a threat, but a very low-level threat in the context of an effective global vaccination program,” he said.

“It remains to be seen how well the vaccines are taken, how close we are to a level of coverage that could give us the opportunity to go for disposal,” he said. “The existence of a vaccine, even with high efficacy, is not a guarantee for the elimination or eradication of an infectious disease,” he said.

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Coronavirus: The WHO official says the coming months will be “tough” despite the vaccine’s approval

The warning comes more than two weeks after the British government announced an extremely contagious variant of the coronavirus.

On December 26, Canada reported the first two cases of the coronavirus variant found in the UK. The variant has also spread to Australia, Japan and several European countries.

The WHO has previously said that newly authorized vaccines, such as Pfizer and Moderna, should continue to work against the new coronavirus variant.

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