The World Health Organisation (WHO) has revealed it is unlikely the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic will end in 2021.
“I think it will be very premature and unrealistic to think that we are going to finish with this virus by the end of the year.
“What we can finish with, if we are smart, is hospitalisations, deaths and the tragedy associated with this pandemic,” Michael Ryan, director of WHO’s health emergencies programme, said at a news conference on Tuesday.
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Mr Ryan said that WHO’s focus at present was to keep transmissions as low as possible and vaccinate more and more people.
According to the official, delivery of vaccine doses has improved compared to 10 weeks ago although there are huge challenges’ in distributing them.
“If the vaccines begin to impact not only on death and hospitalisation, but have a significant impact on transmission dynamics and transmission risk, then I believe we will accelerate toward controlling this pandemic,’’ Ryan said.
However, in a related story, the United Nations (UN) system in Nigeria confirmed on Tuesday the country received 3.94 million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India(SII) and shipped via the COVAX Facility.
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The United Nations (UN) body in Nigeria made this known in a statement made available to the Newsmen Lagos.
COVAX is co-led by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), working in partnership with UNICEF, the World Bank, civil society organisations, manufacturers and others.
The UN system said the arrival marked a historic step towards the goal to ensure equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines globally, in what would be the largest vaccine procurement and supply operation in history.
It said the delivery was part of a first wave of arrivals in Nigeria that would continue in the coming days and weeks.
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