The Director of Incident Management at the World Health Organization, Abdi Mahmoud, explained that “more evidence shows that the Omicron strain affects the upper respiratory tract”, but “it causes milder symptoms than previous mutant.”
In response to a question regarding whether Omicron will need a special vaccine, Mahmoud considered it “too early to determine that,” stressing that this decision needs global coordination and should not be taken by the commercial sector alone.
Corona virus cases reached record levels in several countries, as the world crossed the symbolic threshold of one million infections per day for the first time in the week of December 23-29, according to a census conducted by Agence France-Presse, on the eve of the New Year celebrations.
The number of new infections with Covid in all its variants, according to a report by the World Health Organization, increased by 57 percent in Europe in the week leading up to December 26, and by 30 percent in the Americas.
Last week, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, expressed concern that the spread of the delta and omicron mutants was causing a “flood of infections”.
Tedros reiterated his call for countries to share vaccines more equally and warned that focusing on booster doses in rich countries might deprive poor countries of essential doses.
While Mike Ryan, the chief emergency expert at the World Health Organization, considered that the acute phase of the Corona pandemic may end next year, but the Corona virus will not disappear.
He added, “It is still early days to draw conclusions regarding the seriousness of the Omicron mutant, and that things will become clearer when it spreads more widely among the elderly.”
The total number of coronavirus cases in the world has reached 293 million, with 5.45 million deaths.
