Warning of 1m more deaths
Bleak toll can be staved off if basic precautions are taken, WHO says
The World Health Organization has warned that the COVID-19 virus may kill another one million people over the next nine months or so if people do not use the tools available to bring the disease under control.
The warning came as the world recorded more than one million COVID-19 related deaths late on Sept 28, according to Johns Hopkins University. More than 33 million people have been infected with the disease.
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the number of cases and deaths worldwide are unevenly distributed, with 10 countries accounting for about 70 percent of the cases and more than 70 percent of the deaths.
“I think we have to focus on countries that have contributed much to this and how those countries can cut (the number of infections),” he told a virtual news conference from Geneva on Sept 25. “That could really slash the number of cases and the number of deaths.”
Scientists now know a lot about the disease, even if there are still unknowns, Tedros said.
“Now we have very effective tools at hand, we have to implement those tools now,” he said, referring largely to basic measures such as social distancing, testing, contact tracing and isolation.
The WHO announced on Sept 28 that 120 million rapid tests for COVID-19 will be made available to low-and middle-income countries thanks to an agreement between the WHO and its partners. The tests provide reliable results in 15 to 30 minutes, rather than hours or days, at a lower price with less-sophisticated equipment.
“This will enable the expansion of testing, particularly in hard-to-reach areas that do not have lab facilities, or enough trained health workers to carry out PCR (polymerize chain reaction) tests,” Director-General Tedros said. “This is a vital addition to their testing capacity and is especially important in areas of high transmission.”
According to the WHO, volume guarantee agreements have been struck between two manufacturers and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which will make 120 million of the highly portable and easy-to-use rapid diagnostic tests available over six months.
The tests are currently priced at a maximum of $5 per unit, substantially cheaper than PCR tests.
The US leads the world with the most cases and deaths from COVID-19. It has had more than 7 million cases and more than 200,000 deaths. India and Brazil follow the US in numbers of cases and deaths.
As of Sept 30, India has reported over 6.2 million cases and 97,000 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, said a second one million deaths is “certainly unimaginable, but it’s not impossible”.
It will be a huge task to fund and distribute vaccines, and it could be nine months before people receive them, Ryan said, adding that people need to reflect on the one million people who have died before
thinking about another one million deaths.
“There is a lot that can be done to save lives, both in terms of disease control, existing lifesaving measures and the innovations that are coming down the pipe,” he said.
Ryan warned that unless people take all the proper measures, the numbers that are being projected are not only imaginable but very likely.
Bruce Aylward, senior adviser to Tedros, said that whether another one million people die of COVID-19 is not a function of whether there is a vaccine,
but of whether people can put the tools, approaches and knowledge they have at their disposal to save lives and prevent transmissions.
“If we start thinking about it as a function of the vaccine, people will unnecessarily and unacceptably die as we wait for a vaccine. We should not be waiting.”