Symptomless people should be tested if exposed, WHO says
GENEVA: The World Health Organization (WHO) reiterated its advice on Thursday that resources permitting, people exposed to the novel coronavirus should be tested even if they do not show immediate symptoms of infection.
Maria Van Kerkhove, a WHO epidemiologist, said the UN agency recommended suspected cases and their contacts be tested, if possible, but the focus should be on people displaying signs of infection.
Mike Ryan, head of WHO’S emergencies programme, said there was a rationale for testing asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic people, in particular where clusters of infections were emerging, but that broad population testing was costly and unrealistic.
“It absorbs huge amounts of resources,” Ryan said.
“So we need to focus on testing the right individuals, we need to focus on maximizing the testing in the clusters, and we need to focus on the quality of the testing, and the speed of the turnaround.”
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said an international mission to investigate the virus’s origin would go to Wuhan, where the first infections were detected late last year.
Tedros added that an advance team that went to Beijing in July had been in touch with the Wuhan Institute of Virology
SINOVAC VACCINE GETS EMERGENCY APPROVAL
BEIJING : Sinovac Biotech Ltd’s coronavirus vaccine candidate Coronavac was approved in July for emergency use as part of a programme in China to vaccinate high-risk groups such as medical staff, a person familiar with the matter said.
China has been giving experimental coronavirus vaccines to high-risk groups since July, and a health official told state media in an interview aired last week.