WHO Says Impossible to Globally Eradicate COVID-19 Due to Transmission Routes
It is impossible to completely eliminate COVID-19 because its transmission routes from animals to humans complicate the situation, but we are able to address its consequences and possible healthcare emergencies, Executive Director of the World Health Organization's Health Emergencies Programme Dr Michael Ryan said on Saturday.
"No. I do not believe so. There is very specific criteria when you can eliminate or eradicate a virus ... What we see here is a virus that's evolved quickly, it can move from humans to animals and from animals to humans, so it can hide in different spaces, not just in humans. It is very hard to speak about an eradication or elimination in this case," Ryan told a question-and-answer session, Azernews reports.
He also said that it was possible to eliminate "the public health threat provoked by the virus" through the vaccination and treatment, adding that "we can end the emergency, but we cannot end the virus."
"So, can we eliminate the [COVID-19] virus? I think the answer is very unlikely, if not impossible," Ryan noted.
On Friday, the WHO's director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the organization no longer considered COVID-19 a global health emergency, emphasizing that the infection still posed a threat to the health of the human population.
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