Three years into the pandemic, but we still don’t fully understand the coronavirus, WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan stressed that “we still don’t understand why the waves of this virus vary from country to country.” Why and how are coming through different populations with different numbers. “Another risk that is still unknown is its impact in the long term, i.e., prolonged Covid,” he added.
Coronavirus behaves differently in different communities
Noting that the virus behaves differently in different communities, Swaminathan told BMJ, “We know that morbidity and mortality are related to old age. But at the same time, we also have to understand that the figures coming from different countries in different parts of the world are very uneven. Many countries do not have the same type of diagnostics or genomic capability”
So, we still don’t understand why and how waves of this virus are coming in different countries with different populations, he said.
long covid
Regarding longer-term COVID, the WHO chief scientist said, “We knew that some people who had recovered from infection, especially those who were more seriously ill, had symptoms that persisted for a longer period of time.” “
We are now seeing that in large population-based studies, cases of diseases such as diabetes and heart diseases are about two or three times higher in people who also had mild COVID. Obviously, this is something this virus is doing, she pointed out.
Long COVID-affected limbs
Long-lived covid is not only affecting the respiratory system, but it is also affecting many systems and many organs of the body. There have been worrying reports about the effects on brain and cognitive function.
“It could be setting up an autoimmune response, or some kind of viral reservoir with ongoing inflammation – there are several hypotheses, which need further research to be explored,” he said, adding that it is very different from other respiratory viruses. looks like. which we have dealt with.
a pan-coronavirus vaccine
The WHO official said that developing a pan-coronavirus vaccine that can cover different types of coronaviruses and maybe even go beyond that and be effective against other coronaviruses.
“And it appears to be quite scientifically viable in the next few years — this is partly due to the enormous amount of research into SARS-CoV-2. And immunology as well as understanding on the virus.”
So we are in a good position to be optimistic about a pan-coronavirus vaccine, she said.