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The World Health Organization warned Thursday that its ability to track COVID-19 variants and subvariants worldwide is diminishing due to reduced surveillance.
“With reduced surveillance, fewer tests are being conducted and fewer sequences are being performed and shared, which limits our ability to assess known variants and subvariants… It not only limits our ability to track and identify new ones, but it also limits our ability to track and identify new ones, said Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s COVID Technical Lead: “This makes it very important that we continue our surveillance efforts. is the reason.”
At a media briefing, Van Kerkhove told reporters that part of ending the pandemic is trying to slow its spread.
“The more this virus spreads, the more opportunities we have to change it, and this is something we are deeply concerned about,” she said.
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Van Kerkhov said the WHO is working with member states to respond to the virus “at the right scale”, and the world is still at risk of future variants.
“We expect future variants to be more contagious. We expect that future variants will be more likely to potentially evade immunity. But we don’t know if future variants will be more contagious, or less severe,” she later said.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the pandemic is not over, but the end is “in sight”.
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“Yes, we are better positioned than ever. Weekly COVID-19 deaths continue to decline and are now only 10% of their peak in January 2021,” he said. said.
“But even if most of these deaths could be prevented, 10,000 deaths a week is too many,” Tedros said.
Van Kerkhov said “we are not there yet” but the WHO is very hopeful.
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“The reason we are hopeful is because we have so many tools,” she continued. We just need to make sure we have policies in place to use it most effectively.”