Hard-won gains at risk as Delta variant spreads: WHO
CDC describes Delta variant as chickenpox and cautions it could cause severe diseases, says Washington Post citing an internal document
The world is at risk of losing hard-won gains in fighting COVID-19, as the highly transmissible Delta variant spreads, but World Health organisation (Who)-approved vaccines remain effective against the disease, the group said on Friday.
COVID-19 infections have increased by 80 per cent over the past four weeks in most regions of the world, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. Deaths in Africa - where only 1.5 per cent of the population is vaccinated - rose by 80 per cent over the same period.
“Hard-won gains are in jeopardy or being lost, and health systems in many countries are being overwhelmed,” Tedros told a news conference.
The Delta variant has been detected in 132 countries, becoming the dominant global strain, according to the WHO.
“The vaccines that are currently approved by the WHO all provide significant protection against severe disease and hospitalisation from all the variants, including the Delta variant,” said WHO’S top emergency expert Mike Ryan.
“We are fighting the same virus but a virus that has become faster and beter adapted to transmiting amongst us humans, that’s the change,” he said.
Maria van Kerkhove, WHO technical lead on COVID-19, said that the Delta variant is about 50 per cent more transmissible than ancestral strains of SARS-COV-2, that first emerged in China in late 2019.
A few countries have reported increased hospitalisation rates but higher rates of mortality have not been recorded from the Delta variant, she said.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has described the Delta variant of the coronavirus as being as transmissible as chickenpox and cautioned it could cause severe disease, the Washington Post said, citing an internal CDC document.
Recommending masks for everyone and requiring vaccines for doctors and other health workers are among measures the CDC is considering, according to internal documents obtained by the Washington Post.
The documents appear to be talking points for CDC staff to use in explaining the dangers of the Delta variant and “breakthrough infections that can occur ater vaccination. Noted under communications: “Acknowledge the war has changed.” In recommending that vaccinated people resuming wearing masks indoors in virus hot spots, the CDC this week said that new evidence shows that breakthrough infections may be as transmissible as those in unvaccinated people. They cited a large recent outbreak among vaccinated individuals in the Cape Cod town of Provincetown, Massachusets, among others, for the change.
As the documents note, COVID-19 vaccines are still highly effective at preventing serious illness and death.
The CDC has always expected some breakthrough infections but has struggled with how to explain them to the public.
The documents point out that the Delta variant, first detected in India, causes infections that are more contagious than the common cold, flu, smallpox and Ebola virus, and is as infectious as highly contagious chickenpox.
The internal documents also cite studies from Canada, Singapore and Scotland showing that the Delta variant may poses a greater risk for hospitalisation, intensive care treatment and death than the alpha variant, first detected in the United Kingdom.
Since January, people who got infected ater vaccination make up an increasing portion of hospitalisations and in-hospital deaths among COVID-19 patients, according to the documents.
That trend coincides with the spread of the Delta variant.
But the CDC emphasises that breakthrough infections are still uncommon.
Meanwhile, anyone entering Germany from abroad will have to take a COVID-19 test unless they are fully vaccinated or have recovered from the disease, according to new rules signed off by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet on Friday.
“From Aug.1, all people ntering Germany will be obliged to have proof of a negative test, vaccination or recovery,” Merkel’s spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer said in a statement.