Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – The World Health Organization (WHO) is again warning. Through its leader Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, this institution asks the public to prepare for the next pandemic.
He said the new corona virus (Covid-19) which is now hitting the earth, is not the only outbreak. The world, he said, had to be aware of the new pandemic that was coming up ahead.
“This is not the last pandemic,” Tedros said at a press conference in Geneva Reuters, Tuesday (8/9/2020).
“History teaches us that epidemics and pandemics are a fact of life. But when the next pandemic comes, the world must be prepared – more prepared than it is now.”
Therefore he asked each country to invest more in public health. Currently there are 27.19 million people infected with corona worldwide, with the death toll of 888,326 since they were first identified in China in December 2019.
Previously, the world was hit by the SARS outbreak in 2002. However, unlike Covid-19, SARS could be contained within a few months.
The world was also hit by the Spanish flu in 1918 to 1920. One third of the world’s population at that time was infected with the disease from this H1N1 virus, in which about 50 million people died.
Previously, this organization also warned countries about the corona vaccine (Covid-19). Premature authorization, carried out without waiting for phase III results, can be problematic.
“The risk of approving the vaccine too early for us is, first of all, it will be very difficult to continue randomized clinical trials,” said WHO Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan quoted from CNBC International.
“And second, there is the risk of introducing a vaccine that has not been adequately studied and may turn out to have low efficacy. So that it does not end this pandemic or make it worse, because of its unacceptable safety profile.”
Meanwhile, Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, Mike Ryan also asked countries and vaccine developers to collect more adequate data. Especially to which type of population the vaccine will be distributed.
“When vaccines are introduced to a larger and possibly more diverse part of the population, negative side effects can arise,” he said in the same paper stressing the safety risks.
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