Almost eight months, the world is struggling with coronavirus or called as COVID-19. Researchers try to found the vaccine of coronavirus to achieving herd immunity against coronavirus.
But sad news comes from the World Health Organization (WHO), who has warned that people should stop to pinning their hopes on the vaccine of COVID-19.
As we know, from the information that circulated told that at least 70 per cent of people need to have caught and recovered from the virus to reach herd immunity, when disease runs out of the room and can no longer spread because enough of the population has been exposed to it, and the scientists believe it.
But, Dr Michael Ryan, the no-nonsense Irish epidemiologist in charge of the WHO’s health emergencies programme, told that the statement was wrong. He dismissed the controversial strategy of herd immunity as a viable policy at a press briefing today in Geneva, Switzerland.
He said, “As a global population, the levels of immunity required to stop this disease transmitting, but this is not a solution and not a solution we should be looking to. We need more.”
He also revealed from the data that he got, only 10 to 20 percent of the people living in badly-hit countries such as the UK have the disease-fighting proteins.
“We can be more optimistic if the community protection could be established if 40 per cent of people had antibodies against Covid-19. Without a vaccine and only one drug was proven to cut the risk of death, it means that thousands of people will die from the virus. COVID-19 is estimated to kill around 0.6 per cent of everyone it infects but is much deadlier for older people.”
Here some data of countries based on antibody studies:
- A quarter of people living in Delhi, which is home to almost 19million, have antibodies. Between less than 58 percent of residents in poor areas had antibodies, versus 11 to 17 percent elsewhere in the city.
- The UK was one of the nations that pondered herd immunity as a public health strategy at the beginning of the crisis.
- Sweden went ahead with its herd immunity strategy and avoided locking down the country. Four in 10 Swedes would build up protection against the virus.
- Belgium, England, Portugal, and Spain have herd immunity thresholds in the range of 10 to 20 percent.
- At least 17 percent of black people and 12 percent of Asian people in England have already had the virus compared with five percent of white people.
As information, there is no indication that any country in the world has developed herd immunity yet, based on antibody studies.
Catching Covid-19 has shown to be more likely when people live in crowded conditions, live in poorer areas, or work in essential roles, from nurses to bus drivers. And also those from black, Asian, and ethnic minority backgrounds have also been shown to be more at risk of catching the coronavirus.
