New Delhi: A World Health Organization (WHO) official said that despite Covid-19 cases in parts of India starting to plateau at risk, the focus should be on reducing transmission and implementing situation-specific measures.
Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, regional director for the WHO South-East Asia Region, said the COVID-19 risk remains high and no country is “out of the woods” yet.
“Therefore, even if the number of cases in some cities or states has started decreasing, the risk remains. We need to be constantly vigilant. Our focus should be on reducing the transmission,” Dr Singh said in an interview to PTI while answering a question that the coronavirus cases in India have started decreasing.
“Implementing situation-specific public health and social measures and increasing vaccine coverage – this is the way forward for all countries in the ongoing pandemic,” she said.
Asked whether the Covid pandemic is entering endemic stages, the WHO official said: “We are still in the middle of the pandemic and the focus should be on stopping the virus from spreading and saving lives.”
“Being endemic doesn’t mean the virus won’t be a cause for concern,” she said.
Dr Singh said that Omicron is able to infect the tissues of the upper respiratory tract rather than the lungs more rapidly than the delta version of COVID-19, which could also help with this type of spread.
“The risk of serious illness and death appears to be low after Omicron infection compared to other types,” Singh said.
“However, due to the very high number of cases, many countries have seen a significant increase in the incidence of hospitalizations, putting strain on health systems,” she said.
Noting that the severity of the disease increases with age and in the presence of underlying medical conditions and in people who are not vaccinated, the WHO official said the data suggests that Omicron infections lead to higher hospitalizations than Delta infections. may be associated with a reduced risk of
Stressing the need to accelerate efforts in all countries to vaccinate all at-risk populations, Dr Singh said: “The evidence on the effectiveness of the vaccine for Omicron is increasing, but we still have much to learn.”
“So far, we think that vaccines are less effective against omicron infection and symptomatic disease than Delta is. Having a booster shot appears to increase protection,” she said.
However, vaccines are still highly effective in protecting people from serious illness, hospitalization and death, the WHO official said.
Dr. Singh said that vaccines are an effective way to reduce the chances of serious illness caused by Omicron type.
He added that the emergence of omicrons means that protective behaviors are important such as keeping a safe distance from others, avoiding crowds, wearing a mask that covers the mouth and nose properly, sanitizing hands regularly, sanitizing indoor spaces properly, etc. Keeping ventilated and covering coughs and sneezes.
WHO official comments as the country is currently battling a third wave driven by COVID omicron Type.
Earlier on Thursday, the Union Health Ministry said that there are early signs of a plateau of Covid cases in some geographical areas of the country, but the trend needs to be observed.
India had earlier reported a total of 3,47,254 new Kovid-19 cases on January 21, after which the number of daily infections is decreasing.
Particularly the states of Delhi, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Odisha and Haryana have seen a decline in cases and positivity rates.
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