The World Health Organisation has outlined what the future of Covid-19 could look like as the virus is expected to stick around for quite some time.
Speaking about the trajectory of the disease, it said most likely, the severity of Covid would wane over time as greater public immunity is developed.
However, the UN health agency warned that a more dangerous variant could still emerge despite greater immunity.
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The WHO released its updated Covid-19 Strategic Preparedness, Readiness and Response Plan, as chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he hopes it will be the last time such plan is needed.
It lays out three possible scenarios for the course of the pandemic in 2022.
Speaking at a press conference, Dr Tedros said: “Based on what we know now, the most likely scenario is that the virus continues to evolve, but the severity of disease it causes reduces over time as immunity increases due to vaccination and infection.”
He added that spikes in cases and deaths may mean an occasional booster vaccine will be needed for the vulnerable as immunity from previous doses wane.
Dr Tedros said: “In the best-case scenario, we may see less severe variants emerge, and boosters or new formulations of vaccines won’t be necessary.
“In the worst-case scenario, a more virulent and highly transmissible variant emerges. Against this new threat, people’s protection against severe disease and death, either from prior vaccination or infection, will wane rapidly.”
Dr Tedros said that should a more severe variant emerge, the current Covid vaccines would need to be significantly altered, and those most vulnerable to severe disease would have to be prioritised.
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on Covid-19, warned that the virus still has “a lot of energy left” going into the third year of the pandemic.
More than 10 million new cases and 45,000 deaths were reported to the WHO last week. However, the number of new infections is said to be much higher due to the drop in testing.
More than 479 million confirmed cases have been registered throughout the pandemic, and more than six million deaths, although the true toll is believed to be much higher.
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