World Health Organization’s senior officials have warned that the Coronavirus is not necessarily the big one, and that there is a real chance of another, more serious pandemic spreading across the world.
Since the first reports of the coronavirus began circulating nearly a year ago, the WHO has repeatedly warned that the world must prepare for even deadlier pandemics in the future.
The coronavirus pandemic might not be the ‘big one’ that experts have long feared, World Health Organization emergencies chief Mike Ryan warned at the global health agency’s last virtual media briefing of the year.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, the UN agency is learning new things about the virus every day, including the ability of new variants to spread, make people sick, or have a potential impact on available tests, treatments or vaccines.
Dr. Tedros singled out work taking place in the UK and South Africa, where scientists are carrying out epidemiologic and laboratory studies, which will guide the agency’s next steps.
WHO’s head of Emergencies Programme Dr. Mike Ryan said, the next pandemic may be more severe, we need get our act together, because we live on a fragile planet, and in an increasingly complex society.
The coronavirus, he said, should serve as a ‘wake-up call’.
After the coronavirus emerged in China late last year, 2020 is coming to an end amid the rollout of new coronavirus vaccines. But case numbers are rising in some places, and public health experts are warning about a highly transmissible variant of the virus first detected in Britain in September and since documented in more than 20 countries.