The coronavirus will be present “forever in one form or another,” said a member of the UK government’s Emergency Science Advisory Group (Sage).
Sir Mark Walport said people should be vaccinated at regular intervals.
His comments come after the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said he hoped the pandemic would be over within two years, as it took two years to defeat the Spanish flu.
Sir Mark said population density and travel meant the virus spread easily.
He also said that the world’s population is much larger today than in 1918.
Sir Mark said that in order to control the pandemic, “global vaccination” would be needed, but that the coronavirus would not be a disease like smallpox “which could be eradicated by vaccination”.
“It’s a virus that will be with us forever in one form or another, and one that will almost certainly require repeat vaccinations,” he said.
“So, much like the flu, people will have to be revaccinated at regular intervals.”
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director of the WHO, said that the Spanish flu of 1918 took two years to be defeated and that technological advances could allow the world to stop the coronavirus “in a shorter timeframe”.
The 1918 flu killed at least 50 million people.
The coronavirus has killed 800,000 people so far. Almost 23 million infections have been recorded, but it is believed that the number of people who have actually had the virus is much higher due to insufficient testing and asymptomatic cases.
Sir Mark warned it was “possible” for the coronavirus to get “out of control” again, but said more targeted measures could now be used in place of generic containment.
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