The percentage of people with the virus COVID-19 is increasing in the world. In several cities in the United States, more cases are reported every day, many of which require hospitalization. And also in Canada, UK, China and Japan. However, it does not represent a significant risk to the health public, warned the World Health Organization, WHO.
In its most recent report dated August 8, the WHO points out the designation of the new EG.5 variant of COVID-19, which could be behind the increase in the number of cases in the world, for which it described it as a “variant of interest”, after being monitored since February 19.
However, the WHO specified that EG.5, a lineage descended from another omicron variant, XBB.1.9.2 that was first reported on February 17, is “low risk.”
As of August 6, 80% new cases (almost 1.5 million) and a 57% decrease in deaths (2,500) have been reported since July 10 compared to the previous 28 days. “While five WHO regions reported decreases in the number of cases and deaths, the Western Pacific Region reported an increase in cases and a decrease in deaths,” said the most Recent WHO report.
“The alarm period for COVID-19 that we had between 2020 and 2021 has already passed, and the disease, if it is a pandemic declared by the WHO, is endemic and, like influenza, more cases are reported each year,” he said. the doctor María Eugenia Landaeta, head of service of the Infectious Diseases Unit of the Hospital Clínico Universitario, a national reference in Venezuela.
He indicated that the increase may be related to climatic factors, such as the appearance of rain, or to the natural behavior of any epidemic that registers moments of silence or manifestation of cases.
“The rains cause accumulations of people inside closed spaces, they take shelter in buildings, in offices, and if someone is sick in those places where there are more people, then there is greater transmission. There is a theory that the cold favors the transmission of COVID-19 and people become infected more easily. In times of heat there is no greater influence, as such, ”he explained.
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A medical worker prepares a dose of Russia’s Sputnik COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination site set up inside the Alba Caracas hotel amid the novel coronavirus pandemic in Caracas, Venezuela, January 25, 2022.
AP/File
However, an important level of immunity has been reached due to the vaccines that counteract the mortality risks, and therefore the conditions are mild.
The appearance of the new EG.5 variant does not mean a danger, Landaeta specifies, as the world population was exposed to during the first three years, since the virus was first reported in the city of Wuham, China, on 31 December 2019.
“The virus has continued to mutate since it was transmitted from one person to another, because mutations are variations in the replication of the virus. When this happens, replication errors occur and the virus changes its shape, its characteristics, but this does not mean at this time that people are going to suffer from more serious diseases, and rather, it means that there will be more immunity to the variants that we already suffered”.
He referred to the gamma, delta and omicron variants with their variations
To achieve immunity to the new versions of COVID-19, Landaeta pointed out that the vaccine is still effective, but it will have to have the necessary updates, such as those for Influenza.
“The influenza vaccine is redesigned every year and we must immunize ourselves once a year. And that will happen with the COVID-19 vaccine, we are going to have a vaccine with the updated strains, and possibly what is going to happen is that there will be dual vaccines for COVID and Influenza, so that a single vaccine is given to the people to cover themselves from the two viruses, once a year ”.
Despite the fact that the new cases with the EG.5 variant do not represent a high risk, Landaeta said that “people are no longer afraid of deaths.”
But he suggested continuing to wear masks and wash hands as precautions against the coronavirus disease that forever changed human life.
2023-08-11 21:14:01
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