INTERNATIONAL: WHO's emergency director Mike Ryan reiterated on Wednesday the agency's opposition to blanket bans on flights to and from southern Africa that have been imposed by Britain and other countries. He says, it would not prevent the variant's spread.
The World Health Organization emergency director Mike Ryan says that the idea you can just put a hermetic seal on some countries is not possible adding that he cannot see the logic, from a public health or an epidemiologic perspective.
Ryan says, “So, the idea that you could put a hermetic seal on most countries is just frankly not possible. We all know that we have seen that happened before. And certainly, there has to be consistency in that, if they are being applied, they have to be consistent and certainly we have seen a lot of inconsistency with countries for example in Africa having banned travel and they haven’t had a single confirmed case and other countries with confirmed cases and evidence of local transmission with no travel bans. So, I’m not saying one is right or one is wrong, what I’m saying is, I can’t see the logic, certainly from a public health or an epidemiologic perspective.”
He says there is also some inherent internal contradiction in these bans, and everyone has seen before where flights are banned in many countries, except for its own citizens.
He has added, “I mean, epidemiologically, I find it hard to understand the principle there. Is it that some passport holders will have the virus, and some won’t? Does the virus read your passport? Does the virus know your nationality or where you are legally resident? So, therefore there are contradictions in this. So, our concern here, is that we apply public health principles not political principles to selecting measures that are used to control the spread of the disease.”
WHO technical lead on COVID-19, Maria van Kerkhove warned that travel bans prevented South Africa to ship samples of Omicron variant out of the countries.
She says, “But the travel bans that have been imposed by (on) South Africa have caused some challenges for those samples to actually be shipped out of the country. So, there are other implications for these travel bans that are out there. We are finding a way. They are finding a way to be able to share those materials, so that studies can be done. Unfortunately, you know, or fortunately, but unfortunately, the virus passes in people and the virus is in countries, in 23 countries now and so that virus is available to many already. But travel bans do have a negative impact on the ability to ship samples out of a country.”
WHO's chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan has said the agency’s vaccine advisory group will meet next week to review the data on extra doses of COVID-19 vaccines as wealthy countries administer booster shots to more of their population.
No specific date given, but Swaminathan said they will give recommendations on the use of boosters after the review. Ryan also stated there was no evidence yet that giving boosters to the whole population, including healthy people, will provide greater protection against the disease.
