The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced that it maintains the international emergency due to covid-19, declared since January 30, 2020, and warns that the endemic is not the solution for covid-19. On the other hand, the EMA supports the fourth dose for immunosuppressed
A nurse prepares a dose of the covid-19 vaccine in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. EFE/André Coelho
Covid: The WHO maintains the international emergency and warns that the endemic is not a solution
The WHO Emergency Committee, meeting for more than four hours on January 14, advised the organization’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, to maintain the international emergency, who approved this proposal, said a statement issued Tuesday.
Chaired by Dr. Didier Houssin, the committee, which meets approximately every three months to analyze the evolution of the pandemic, estimated that the global risk associated with it remains high, due in part to the rise of new variants of the SARS-CoV coronavirus. -2, like the omicron, already dominant on the planet.
Among the recommendations issued by the committee at its sixth meeting, its request that the WHO speed up research on the efficacy of vaccines and the duration of immunity they provide stands out.
Also, at the international emergency level, the WHO suggests that restrictions on international travel be issued in a limited and data-based way, after last November the omicron variant alert affected global air traffic again and did not prevent the transmission of this new strain of coronavirus.
Given the uneven distribution of vaccines that persists globally and doubts about their effectiveness in curbing transmission, the committee insists that governments should not require proof of vaccination from international travelers.
The experts of the WHO They consider that, despite the fact that vaccines have lost effectiveness in preventing the spread and transmission of the coronavirus, they are still efficient in preventing serious forms of the disease, including fatal cases.
From pandemic to endemic
The transformation of the pandemic into an endemic will not necessarily be good news nor will it mean seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, said today a senior official from the World Health Organization (WHO), who recalled that the objective is “that no one has to die” of covid-19.
“People talk about pandemic versus endemic, but malaria is endemic, just like HIV, and they kill hundreds of thousands of people, so endemic is not a good thing, it just means it’s here forever. What we have to get to is low levels of incidence of the disease, with a maximum of people vaccinated and that no one has to die from this (Covid-19), “said WHO Director of Health Emergencies Mike Ryan.
“That will be the end of the health emergency, the end of the pandemic,” he explained in a talk with other experts from the pharmaceutical sector and civil society within the framework of the Davos Agenda, a virtual event organized by the World Economic Forum .
EMA does not currently see the fourth dose for the general population
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) considered this Tuesday “reasonable” to start considering the administration of a fourth dose of vaccines against COVID-19 in people with a depressed immune system, but warned that there are no data on its need in the healthy general population.
In a press conference, Marco Cavaleri, Head of Vaccination Strategy, assured that drug regulators in different regions, including the EMA, “agree that the administration of multiple booster doses with short intervals in time would not be a long-term sustainable solution.
“The repeated administration of boosters with several short time intervals could reduce the level of antibodies that can be produced in each administration, since our immune system needs a certain amount of time to show the response to the antigen that is presented to it. This will potentially make vaccination a little less efficient over time.”
Cavaleri does not include here the third dose, which is the first reinforcement -which follows the primary vaccination- and the entire European population is already being injected with the endorsement of the EMA, but rather potential future doses, including the fourth, of which “There is no evidence from clinical studies or real life of its need or value” in the general population.
However, in the population with a severely compromised immune system and, “although data are not yet available, it would be reasonable for public health authorities to start considering the administration of a fourth dose now” to increase protection.
On the other hand, the EMA highlighted on Tuesday the great evidence that the mRNA vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna, “do not cause complications” during pregnancy, neither to the women themselves nor to their babies, and warned about the risk of developing COVID -19 serious if contagion occurs during pregnancy.
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