The World Health Organization (WHO) Emergency Committee on Covid is asking countries to set up “real-time surveillance” of possible animal reservoirs of the virus giving rise to the disease, according to its conclusions published on Wednesday.
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“Real-time monitoring and sharing of data on SARS-CoV-2 infection, transmission and course in animals will provide insight into the epidemiology and ecology of the virus,” the committee said. , which believes that the pandemic remains serious enough to merit WHO’s highest level of alert.
This surveillance will also make it possible to identify in time the possible appearances and evolutions of variants in these animals and thus to be able to assess the risks in terms of public health, they write.
In its recommendations, the committee therefore asks WHO member states to “establish epidemiological investigations into the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 (giving rise to Covid-19, editor’s note) at the level of the human-animal interface and targeted surveillance of potential animal hosts and reservoirs”.
Two years after the appearance of the virus, its origin remains quite mysterious.
Experts favor the generally accepted theory of the natural transmission of the virus from an animal reservoir – probably the bat – to humans, via another animal that has not yet been identified.
The hypothesis of a leak of the virus from a Chinese laboratory has been fueled, among others, by the administration of former US President Donald Trump. Some believe that WHO specialists did not have enough leeway to work freely during their investigation in Wuhan, the first city in the world hit by Covid at the end of 2019.
The WHO emergency committee, which is chaired by French professor Didier Houssin, met on January 13, for the tenth time since the start of the pandemic.
It was following the recommendations of this committee that the Director General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, declared on January 30, 2020 that Covid constituted “a public health emergency of international concern”, the highest degree of organization alert.
In its conclusions, the emergency committee indicates that it agreed last week that this level of alert remains justified.
The committee “unanimously” agreed that the pandemic “still constitutes an extraordinary event that continues to adversely affect the health of people around the world, presents a risk of international spread and interference with international traffic, and requires coordinated international response”.
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