World Health Organization warns of “new changes”

On Thursday, the emergency committee of the World Health Organization warned of a “strong possibility” of the emergence of new mutations in the Corona virus, “which could be more dangerous”.

“The epidemic is not yet over,” said experts on the committee who are advising the director general of the World Health Organization in a statement following their meeting on Wednesday.

They added: “There is a high likelihood of the emergence and spread of disturbing new mutations which could be more dangerous and even more difficult to contain” than those reported by the United Nations.

The president of the French committee, Didier Hussein, stressed during a press conference that “recent developments are worrying, for 18 months after declaring the public health emergency, we are still pursuing the virus, which in turn continues to sue us “.

The World Health Organization has so far reported four disturbing variants: alpha, beta, gamma and delta.

And the “Delta” mutant, which was first detected in India, is spreading very fast around the world, causing a strong re-emergence of the epidemic. This mutant is much more contagious than the others, and more resistant to vaccines, which does not prevent it from offering good protection against more severe forms of Covid-19 infection and the risk of death.

Professor Hussein explained that the emergency committee made two main recommendations: to defend equitable access to vaccines and not to take initiatives with weak scientific justifications, such as granting a third dose of an anti-Covid vaccine proposed by the Pfizer / Piontech alliance.

The former Director General of Health of France added that “we must continue to advocate relentlessly for equitable access to vaccines in the world by encouraging the sharing of doses, local production, the abolition of intellectual property rights, the transfer of technology, the increase in production capacities and of course the financing necessary to carry out all these activities.

The World Health Organization, non-governmental organizations and countries affected for months denounce inequitable access to vaccines.

While the United States and the European Union aim to vaccinate the vast majority of their populations in the coming weeks, the most disadvantaged countries have barely vaccinated 1% of their population.