WHO accuses India’s 2nd wave of premature openness and social diversity | India News

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LONDON: The World Health Organization (WHO) at the G7 summit in the UK blamed the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in India on the premature opening of society and flexibility public health measures, as well as the emergence of new variants and uneven distribution of vaccines. Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO health emergency program, told TOI: The cause or evolution of this wave in India was driven by a number of factors, including the openness of society, the wedding season, religious ceremonies, a general increase in mobility and mixing of populations, and the emergence of the Delta strain, more transmissible and possessing more kinetic energy and capable of exploiting transmission opportunities. This is because we have given the virus more opportunities and the virus has more capacity, and if you combine opportunity and capacity, you get the situation that you saw in India. Ryan said the impact of India’s pandemic continues to be very severe. It may have left the global airwaves, but the Indian people are still in great pain as the disease spreads to more rural areas. We commend health workers and the health system for all they are doing to save lives with an extreme lack of equipment and supplies in many places, he added. Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead for the Covid-19 response at the WHO, blamed India’s second deadly wave on four worrying variants around the world: the Alpha variant, first identified in the UK; Beta variant, first identified in South Africa; Variant P1, identified for the first time in Brazil; and Delta variant, first identified in India. In addition to the variants that have increased transmissibility, we have seen a dramatic increase in social mix. When the social mix increases, even if it’s small gatherings, you offer the virus an opportunity to spread because people spend time in close contact with each other. The third reason is the relaxation of public health and social measures, she said. These are scientifically proven measures that can reduce infections and reduce transmission and save lives now. The last is the uneven and inequitable distribution of vaccines around the world. We need vaccines to reach those most vulnerable and most at risk of infection first. Maria said all of these factors created a very dangerous combination. His message to India was “to remain very vigilant and to do everything possible to reduce transmission with all the tools we currently have, including vaccines, but not just vaccines. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: The best approach in India is not to let your guard down and follow the strong comprehensive public health approach with vaccination but we are happy to see a trend the decline in deaths and cases over the past three to four weeks. He added the first phase of the WHO study on the origins of the virus was inconclusive and that the Wuhan laboratory leak theory remained an open hypothesis on the table. The study of origins is something the WHO takes very seriously. We need the cooperation from the Chinese side and we need transparency to know or find the origins of this virus because there were difficulties in sharing data, especially raw data, in the first phase, did he said, adding that the WHO is preparing the second phase of the study.

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