CHENNAI: Has the world entered the endemic stage of the Covid-19 outbreak? Dr Soumya Swaminathan, former Chief Scientist, World Health Organisation (WHO), believes that it is a difficult question to answer as a new variant could emerge at any time.
Speaking on the topic "Emerging and Re-Emerging Infectious Diseases: Handling the Uninvited Visitors at the Directorate of Public Health international conference in Mahabalipuram on Thursday, Dr Swaminathan said, "luckily for the last year there is only an Omicron variant and even though more than 500 sub-lineages of Omicron have been tracked, they have not caused severe diseases and vaccines are protecting people from severe disease."
Though vaccines are not protecting against the infection, because the virus was able to mutate to overcome the antibodies that have been generated, luckily a large majority of people are protected from severe disease. But, again we have to remember that immunity wanes over time. So, if you are older and have underlying conditions and an immune-suppression conditions booster dose is very important, said Dr Soumya.
Just like with influenza, we might need variants of adaptive vaccines for Covid-19. This is why the WHO has set up a committee to track the evolution of viruses and inform vaccine developers.
Dr Soumya further said she does not believe we can prevent another pandemic, adding the key would be to act quickly in case there is one. "What we can do is act quickly to localise the outbreak response," said Dr Soumya, adding better surveillance to identify the disease early would be helpful. Stressing the importance of investing in genomic technology, Dr Soumya said, "Today we are moving into the era of genomic epidemiology and genomics surveillance. In many ways it can reduce the cost of sequencing and I urge the Department of Public Health to invest in genomics," said Dr Soumya.