While the entire world is waiting for the coronavirus vaccine, a Senior World Health Organisation (WHO) official, Michael J Ryan on Wednesday stated that COVID-19 may just become another virus in the world community like HIV infection, and may never go away.
"COVID-19 just may become another endemic virus in our communities and this may never go away. HIV has not gone away," Dr Ryan, executive director of the WHO health emergency program was quoted as saying by CNN. He further added that "I am not comparing the two diseases (HIV and Coronavirus) but I think it is most important that we are realistic. I don't think anyone can predict when or if this disease will disappear."
He also said that lifting the coronavirus restrictions while the case count is still high could lead to the massive transmission of the virus and another possible lockdown. "If you can get the day-to-day numbers to the lowest possible level and get as much virus out of the community as possible, and when you open, you will tend to have less transmission or much less risk. If you reopen in the presence of a high number of virus transmission, then the transmission may accelerate," Ryan was quoted as saying by Sputnik.
Ryan also said that coronavirus is bringing the "best in us and also some of the worst in us." On vaccine, he said, "we may have a shot at eliminating the coronavirus but that vaccine will have to be available, it will have to be highly effective, it will have to be made available to everyone and we'll have to use it."
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According to the World Health Organisation, so far, a total of 4,170,424 number of confirmed cases have been reported including 287,399 fatalities, as of Wednesday. WHO declared the novel coronavirus as a global pandemic on March 11, and it has been giving daily situation report on the infection since January 21.
-PTC News