In November 2019, before the world heard of the new coronavirus, 14 children in the Pacific Island Nation, Samoa were connected to the fans. Everyone has fought for their lives against a different, but also highly contagious, viral disease: measles.
During this epidemic, 81 The Samoans are deadand all were deaths that could have been prevented with a safe and effective vaccine.
It is this anecdote, among so many other people who have died because they chose not to receive the recommended vaccines, that worries the World Health Organization that we will never be able to get rid of COVID-19, even if there is a vaccine.
"I don't think anyone can predict when or if this disease will go away," WHO executive director of health emergencies Mike Ryan said on Wednesday at a press conference.
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"We are very hopeful if we find a very effective vaccine that we can distribute to everyone who needs it around the world. We may have the opportunity to eliminate this virus."
But this vaccine will have to be available. It will have to be very effective. It will have to be accessible to everyone and we will have to use it. "
Ryan's occasional assessment arrived just hours after the WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan told Financial time it can take "four to five" years to "control" the coronavirus, adding that there is no "crystal ball" to know if things will get better or worse in this epidemic, or if we can develop an effective vaccine.
Even getting a hit in the market, Ryan agreed, still a "massive shot to the moon".
"This virus may never go away," he said.
Without a vaccine, it would take four to five years to control the COVID-19 outbreak
Most people around the world have not yet been exposed to COVID-19, which means that the world is still in a very vulnerable place.
"The current number of people in our population who have been infected is actually relatively small"Ryan said, referring to recent blood tests done around the world to look for antibodies, which so far (although the tests are not yet reliable) suggest less than 10 percent people have been exposed to the coronavirus.
In the absence of a vaccine, the disease could take several years to establish "in an endemic phase," said Ryan, where many people have been exposed and circulating like other viruses do. seasonal.
In the United States, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, where scientists are working on the development of a COVID-19 vaccine, told members of the United States Senate on Tuesday that a vaccine does not certainly won't be ready by the time students return to class this fall.
"Even at maximum speed as we move forward, we don't see a vaccine playing on people's ability to go back to school this term," said Fauci.
If a vaccine is to be available for years to come, there are also many political, financial, logistical and human-scale problems to resolve how it will be distributed fairly and economically, and if there are any. will have enough glass bottles y needles go around.
"Science can create a vaccine," said Ryan, "but if someone wants to do it, we have to do it enough so that everyone can get a dose, and we have to be able to deliver it, and people must want to take this vaccine. Each of these steps is challenging. "
Only about half (53 percent) of American adults aged 35 to 44 said "Yes, I would be vaccinated" against COVID-19, if a vaccine was available, according to one Morning Consult survey taken earlier this month.
Likewise, the percentage of American adults who are "very comfortable" with vaccines is decreasing, and the proportion of people who say "not quite comfortable" with vaccines is decreasing is increasing, even since January, between this period. devastating pandemic, according to one CivicScience investigation.
"Forgive me if I'm cynical, but we have perfectly effective vaccines on this planet that we haven't used effectively for diseases that we could eliminate and eradicate, and we don't have it," said Ryan.
"We lacked willpower, we did not have the determination to invest in health systems to achieve it, we lacked ability to maintain primary health care,
This article was originally published by Business Insider.
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