Covid in India may be entering some kind of stage of endemicity: WHO's Soumya Swaminathan
On the use of drugs like Remdesivir, HCQ or Ivermectin for Covid treatment, she said as of now, there is no evidence that HCQ or Ivermectin have any role to play in reducing mortality or morbidity.
Published: 24th August 2021 09:01 PM | Last Updated: 24th August 2021 11:52 PM | A+A A-
WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan (Photo | PTI)
NEW DELHI: Covid-19 in India may be entering “some kind of endemicity” where there is low to moderate level of disease transmission going on, Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist with the World Health Organisation has suggested.
Different from the pandemic stage when an infectious disease affect a large number of people at one time, in the endemic stage, a disease is present at an approximately constant level within a geography or country.
In an interview to a news portal, Swaminathan said that given the size of India and heterogeneity of population and immunity status in different parts of the country, it is "very very feasible" that the situation may continue like this with ups and downs in various parts of the nation.
"We may be entering some kind of stage of endemicity where there is low level transmission or moderate level transmission going on but we are not seeing the kinds of exponential growth and peaks that we saw a few months ago,” she said.
Swaminathan further added that it is likely the scenario in India- given its size, heterogenicity, immunity status, mainly in areas with a more susceptible population.
“.. so those groups who were perhaps less affected by first and second waves or those areas with low levels of vaccine coverage we could see peaks and troughs for the next several months,” she said.
