Ómicron: WHO asks to accelerate vaccination due to the high risk presented by the new variant of the coronavirus

The World Health Organization (WHO) today warned that the global risks posed by omicron variant are “very high”, so he asked all governments to accelerate vaccination against coronavirus COVID-19 and strengthen surveillance measures against possible outbreaks of this derivative of the coronavirus.

The organization’s latest technical report, released today, considers that, taking into account the speed with which the variant develops new mutations that are potentially more resistant to vaccines and more contagious, the risk of transmission is “high”, which forces to intensify prevention strategies.

“There may be new waves of COVID-19 with serious consequences, depending on many factors, such as where those waves occur”, warns the report, published the same day that the WHO inaugurated an extraordinary assembly to promote the negotiation of an international treaty to prepare and respond to future pandemics.

Accelerating vaccination against COVID-19, “especially among the population at risk that remains unvaccinated,” is one of the measures that must be taken Given the arrival of the new variant, the WHO stressed, which also asked all countries to report possible cases or outbreaks associated with omicron.

PUNISHMENT OF THOSE WHO SOUND THE ALARM

In this regard, the Director General of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, regretted at the opening of the WHO assembly that the two countries that first reported the new variant, South Africa and Botswana, are being “penalized” with flight cancellations, quarantines of their citizens in other countries and other measures.

“A South Africa and Botswana You have to thank them, not penalize them ”, he claimed Tedros in a long intervention in which he denounced that after what happened there is a danger that other countries will be afraid to alert the world about possible new threats, for fear of the economic consequences.

In its technical report, the WHO it does not openly recommend that flights to countries or regions where the omicron variant has been located be banned, and only points out that national authorities “must use scientific bases when adjusting in a timely manner the measures regarding international travel.”

He admits, in any case, that for now the cases of the variant, which have already been detected in four regions (Africa, Europe, the Middle East and East Asia), are related to the traveling flow.

The general director of the WHO highlighted in his speech that it is not yet known whether the omicron variant is associated with greater ease of contagion or reinfection, more severe cases or greater resistance to vaccines, although he stressed that “scientists around the world are working around the clock to respond to this questions”.

THE VARIANT EMERGED IN THE LESS IMMUNIZED REGION

The Ethiopian expert also took the opportunity to denounce the fact that the new variant has emerged in Africa, the continent with the lowest vaccination rate against the COVID-19, which confirms the warnings that the WHO has issued throughout the year about the dangers of forgetting some regions in the massive immunization campaign.

“As vaccine inequality continues, the virus will have opportunities to spread and evolve in ways that we cannot predict or prevent.”, he warned.

Tedros recalled that 80 percent of the 8,000 million doses of vaccines have been administered in the world so far have gone to the G20 countries (the most industrialized and emerging economies), while the low-income, mostly in AfricaThey have received only 0.6 percent of the total vaccines.

More than a hundred countries in the world have not yet achieved a vaccination rate of 40%, which the WHO wanted to reach in all territories before the end of this year, and probably half of them will not achieve it in the month left, predicted the head of the agency.

“We understand that each government has the responsibility to protect its people, it is natural, but equality in the distribution of vaccines is not a charitable act, it is something that interests all countries because no one can get out of this pandemic alone”, he stressed.

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