As countries like the United States and Britain grapple with spiralling coronavirus case numbers, the World Health Organisation has warned the vaccines are unlikely to prevent one of the biggest problems with the virus.
Despite the rollout of vaccine programs being hailed as the only way out of the coronavirus pandemic, top health officials have warned that inoculation programs probably won’t stop people from being infected with COVID-19.
Instead vaccines are more likely to render coronavirus a “very low threat”, with herd immunity to follow.
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A vaccine that won’t prevent infection could pose a problem for Australia and New Zealand, which have both closed international borders since the beginning of the pandemic.
Both countries have relied on travel bans and mandatory hotel quarantine to prevent community transmission, resulting in coronavirus being eliminated in most communities.
Speaking at a press conference, WHO’s chief scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan said there was yet to be any evidence that coronavirus vaccines were “going to prevent people from actually getting the infection and therefore being able to pass it on”.
“We need to assume that people who have been vaccinated also need to take the same precautions till there‘s a certain level of herd immunity. This is a dynamic in an evolving field,” she said, according to Nine newspapers.
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Instead, WHO Health Emergencies director Dr Mike Ryan said it was more probable that coronavirus would become less severe through vaccination.
“The likely scenario is the virus will become another endemic virus, a virus will remain somewhat of a threat but a very low level threat in the context of an effective global vaccination program,” he said.
Even if a vaccine had a high level of success “there’s no guarantee of eliminating or eradicating an infectious disease” and the priority was ending COVID-19’s spiralling death toll.
“First and foremost we have to focus on saving lives, getting good control of this epidemic so our societies can return to normal and then we will deal with the moonshot of potentially being able to eliminate or eradicate this virus,” he said.
“But at this point, based on the tools and the knowledge we have, that’s impossible to say at this point.”
This month European Union countries, the UK and US all started administering the Pfizer-BioNTech jab, with priority given to the elderly and essential health workers.
Australia is expected to begin rolling out the vaccine here from March 2021 despite calls to fast-track an inoculation program here.
‘THIS WILL NOT BE THE LAST PANDEMIC’
It comes after the WHO’s Director-General warned earlier this week that coronavirus was unlikely to be the last pandemic.
In a video message for the first annual International Day of Epidemic Preparedness, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the “critical interface between humans and animals” as well as climate change needed to be addressed.
“History tells us that this will not be the last pandemic, and epidemics are a fact of life,” he said.
“The pandemic has highlighted the intimate links between the health of humans, animals and planet.”
The idea that countries could “throw money at an outbreak” was also damaging, Dr Tedros argued.
“For too long, the world has operated on a cycle of panic and neglect,” he said.
“We throw money at an outbreak, and when it’s over, we forget about it and do nothing to prevent the next one. This is dangerously shortsighted, and frankly difficult to understand.”
Health and Fitness | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site