WHO mission lauds China for swift measures

BENGALURU: A recently published ‘World Health Organisation (WHO) - China Joint Mission on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)’ report has stated that COVID-19 is “not SARS and it is not influenza. It is a new virus with its own characteristic. The COVID-19 virus is a new pathogen that is highly contagious, can spread quickly, and must be considered capable of causing enormous health, economic and societal impacts in any setting”, the report states.

The joint mission, while confirming that COVID-19 is a “zoonotic” virus, after “phylogenetics analyses undertaken with available full genome sequences, bats appear to be the reservoir of COVID-19 virus, but the intermediate host(s) has not yet been identified”.

The report warns that as the “animal origin of the COVID-19 virus is unknown at present, the risk of reintroduction into previously infected areas must be constantly considered”.

The mission has lauded China for rolling out “perhaps the most ambitious, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history...China’s uncompromising and rigorous use of non-pharmaceutical measures to contain transmission of the COVID-19 virus in multiple settings provides vital lessons for global response. This rather unique and unprecedented public health response in China reversed the escalating cases in both Hubei, where there has been widespread community transmission, and in the importation provinces, where family clusters appear to have driven the outbreak,” the report states.

The JM mentions that “much of the global community is not yet ready, in mindset and materially, to implement the measures that have been employed to contain COVID-19 in China...Fundamental to these measures is extremely proactive surveillance to immediately detect cases, very rapid diagnosis and immediate case isolation, rigorous tracking and quarantine of close contacts, and an exceptionally high degree of population understanding and acceptance of these measures.”

The WHO-China JM consisted of 25 national and international experts from China, Germany, Japan, Korea, Nigeria, Russia, Singapore, USA and WHO, was headed by Dr Bruce Aylward of WHO and Dr Wannian Liang of the People’s Republic of China. The mission was implemented over a 9-day period from February 16-24, 2020.

Hows and whys
COVID-19 transmission in kids appears limited compared with influenza, while clinical picture differs from SARS
Virus is unique among human coronaviruses in its combination of high transmissibility, substantial fatal outcomes and ability to cause huge societal and economic disruption
Strong evidence that non-pharmaceutical interventions can reduce and even interrupt transmission
To reduce illness and death, near-term readiness planning must embrace large-scale implementation of high-quality, non-pharmaceutical public health measures such as immediate case detection and isolation, rigorous close contact tracing and monitoring.