PUNE: Lockdowns are temporary measures of containment and not the solution for long-term Covid-19 control, the World Health Organization’s chief scientist, Dr Soumya Swaminathan, has said.
She also said countries have to boost genomic surveillance to better understand viral evolution and impact of variants on transmission, severity of illness and vaccine efficacy.
She said, “Countries have had to go through cycles of lockdown because they were unable to curb spread by implementing public health measures in an effective way. There is a need for behavioural changes and targeted action by local administrations, instead of deploying such severe measures, unless absolutely necessary.”
The expert added that improved testing, identification of clusters, contact tracing and quarantining of the contacts — along with mask-use and physical distancing — need to be pursued for the foreseeable future.
With new variants emerging, Dr Swaminathan said there should be constant surveillance and research to understand epidemiological and clinical manifestations of the virus and co-relate it with vaccine effectiveness.
She said while the current vaccines against the coronavirus may not be able to shield recipients against infection completely, they do appear to significantly reduce severity of Covid-19 in those infected.
“There are recent reports that suggest if you have the vaccine and you get infected, the viral load is much lower. So the chances of infecting others may be lower,” she said, adding that more studies are needed to determine how effective these vaccines are in blocking transmission.
Dr Swaminathan said the WHO has also called for an increase in samples sequenced per week through sentinel surveillance sites and improved data sharing through accessible genomic databases that allow global collaboration.
On vaccine hesitancy, she said it ought to improve as countries reach out to at-risk populations, such as older people and those with comorbidities.
The WHO has said that millions of doses have been administered around the world and there have been no incidents involving major side-effects so far.