BackCovid waves are unpredictable because…: WHO chief scientist on what is still worrying about coronavirus
The WHO official pointed out that developing a pan-coronavirus vaccine that can cover the different variants of coronavirus would be the holy grail.
PremiumThree years into the pandemic but we still do not understand the coronavirus completely, WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan stressed adding that “we still don’t understand why and how the waves of this virus are coming through different populations with different periodicity in different countries." Another risk that is still unknown is its effect in the longer term, ie long Covid, she also pointed out.
Coronavirus behaves differently in different communities
Noting the virus behaves differently in different communities, Swaminathan told BMJ, “We know that morbidity and mortality are correlated with older age. But at the same time, we have to understand that the data that are coming from different countries in different parts of the world are very uneven. Many countries don’t have the same type of diagnostics or genomic capacities"
So, we still don’t understand why and how the waves of this virus are coming through different populations with different periodicity in different countries, she asserted.
Long COVID
Regarding long COVID, the WHO chief scientist said, “We knew that some people who recovered from infection, particularly those who were more severely ill, had symptoms that persisted for quite some time."
Now we’re seeing that in large population-based studies, incidence of diseases like diabetes and cardiovascular diseases are around two or three times higher in people who had even mild covid. Clearly, that’s something this virus is doing, she pointed out.
Organs that are affected by long COVID
Long covid is not only affecting the respiratory tract, it’s affecting multiple systems, and multiple organs in the body. There have been worrying reports about the impacts on the brain and cognitive function.
“It may be setting up an autoimmune response, or there may be some kind of viral reservoir with ongoing inflammation—there are many hypotheses, which need further research to unravel," she said adding that this seems to be very different from other respiratory viruses that we’ve dealt with.
A pan-coronavirus vaccine
The WHO official pointed out that developing a pan-coronavirus vaccine that can cover the different variants of coronavirus and perhaps even go beyond and be effective against other coronaviruses would be the holy grail.
“And it appears to be scientifically quite feasible to develop one in the next couple of years—that’s partly because of the huge amount of research that’s gone into SARS-CoV-2. And also the understanding of immunology as well as on the virus itself."
So we’re in a good position to be optimistic about a pan-coronavirus vaccine, she added.
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