The World Health Organization (WHO) has released a plan with key strategies to put an end to the emergency phase of the pandemic.
The updated plan to tackle the pandemic is based on the premise that the COVID-19 virus would continue to evolve but its severity would also reduce over time. The severity is attributed to increase in immunity due to vaccination and infection, according to WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The plan talks about possible scenarios on the evolution of virus in the coming year.
According to WHO, current vaccines are proving less effective in reducing the transmission of the Omicron variant.
The updated plan in the form of report titled “Strategic Preparedness, Readiness and Response Plan, is the WHO’s third report on the pandemic. It released its first report at the start of the pandemic, in February 2020.
WHO has called on countries to increase virus surveillance to help end the emergency. The surveillance would enhance capabilities to detect early warning signs of changes in the virus.
It also called for improved detection of long COVID. This also includes tracking and reducing long-term disability after the pandemic has ended.
As immunity wanes, the virus would lead to less severe outbreaks in the base-case scenario which also serves as the WHO’s working model. Booster shots would be required for those at risk. Similar to a case like influenza, the virus would likely fall into a seasonal pattern with peaks in colder months.
Future variants would be less severe and protection from severe disease would be long-lasting in the best-case scenario. In this scenario, there would be no need for future boosting or significant changes to current vaccines.
The virus might transform into highly transmissible and deadly in the worst-case scenario. Vaccines would be less effective and immunity from severe disease and death would wane rapidly in the scenario. Significant changes to current vaccines would be required including a broad campaign of booster shots for vulnerable groups.
In order to identify individual cases and guide community-level decision making, countries also must continue to do diagnostic testing for SARS-CoV-2, according to global health agency.
There is also a need for countries to track virus evolution within animal populations, WHO further stated.
