It was with the intention of clarifying some “misunderstandings” that Maria Van Kerkhove, the technical responsible of the World Health Organization in the fight against the pandemic, returned, again, to the theme of the transmission of Covid-19 by asymptomatic, this time to emphasize that the people infected with Covid-19 who have no symptoms can transmit the disease – what is not yet known is the number of asymptomatic people who spread it. After confirming, on Monday, during the WHO press conference in Geneva, that “asymptomatic transmission is rare worldwide”, this Tuesday admitted that it was a “Misunderstanding to say that globally, asymptomatic transmission is very rare”, said Maria Van Kerkhove, citing studies that suggest that 40% of infections can be transmitted by people without symptoms.
At WHO, Maria Kerkhove’s words fell badly because they could be used by some nations and governments to suspect too soon. As happened in Brazil. President Jair Bolsonaro, who has devalued the new coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic, took advantage of Kerkhove’s comments to anticipate the country’s reopening
With this step back, Maria Van Kerkhove intends to clarify the information she released on Monday, when she revealed that “from the data that WHO has, it seems to be rare for an asymptomatic person to transmit to a secondary individual,” said the epidemiologist, who later resorted to Twitter to try to “clarify” those statements that caused surprise all over the world, since there are studies carried out pointing to transmission by asymptomatic people, this being one of the factors that justified the confinements.
WHO. It is “very rare”, after all, that people without symptoms transmit the coronavirus
“We have several reports from countries that are tracking very detailed contacts. They are following asymptomatic cases, following contacts, and find no secondary transmission. It is very rare and much of this is not published in the literature, “said the American, who also admitted that the best procedure is to follow and isolate all patients with symptoms. Van Kerkhove explained that Covid-19 “passes from an individual through infectious droplets. If we really followed all symptomatic cases, isolated these cases, followed the contacts and placed them in quarantine, we would reduce the disease drastically ”, he said.
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