WHO Warns of Long Road Ahead with COVID-19
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WHO Flags Response Gaps
Tedros said one of the WHO’s tasks is to track countries’ outbreak response progress, and though many who reported have strong capabilities, no single country has everything in place. For example, of countries reporting data to the WHO, 91 percent have the lab capacity to test for COVID-19, while 78 percent have response plans in place, and 76 percent have surveillance systems.
However, he said only 66 percent have clinical referral systems to care for COVID-19 patients. Less than half have community engagement plans, and less than half have infection prevention and control programs and standards for water, sanitation, and hygiene in health facilities.
“In other words, there are still many gaps in the world’s defenses,” Tedros said. “WHO will continue working with countries and the international community to close these gaps and build sustainable capacities for now and the future.”
PAHO Head Urges Nations to Step Up Testing
Countries in the WHO Americas region need to speed up and expand testing, Carissa Etienne, MBBS, MSc, director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said yesterday at a media briefing. “We need a clearer view of where the virus is circulating and how many people have been infected in order to guide our actions,” she said.
Though countries have been ready to test and detect cases since before the pandemic was declared, with cases increasing, many countries are struggling to keeping up, Etienne said. PAHO has already sent 500,000 tests to 34 countries and territories, and it is sending 1.5 million more this week and another 3 million next week.
Brazil is South America’s hardest-hit country, with more than 43,000 cases reported so far. Other countries battling large outbreaks include Peru, Chile, and Ecuador.
European, Asian Developments
In Europe, Pedro Sanchez, Spain’s prime minister, asked lawmakers to extend the country’s emergency measures for a third time, the BBC reported. While Spain is the world’s second hardest-hit country, cases are starting to decline there, as in neighboring countries. The prime minister told Parliament that restrictions can probably begin slowly easing in the last half of May.
Spain has some of Europe’s tightest restrictions, including an order that children be kept inside. However, the government announced yesterday that beginning Apr 26, children ages 14 and younger can go outside for walks.
Meanwhile, German regulators approved a plan for clinical trials to proceed on COVID-19 vaccines developed by BioNTech and Pfizer, Reuters reported. And early results from a serology study by a Geneva-based research group show that 5.5 percent were positive for SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies.
In Asian developments, Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province, has restricted incoming travel yesterday to slow the spread of the virus, after earlier ordering people from outside China or key epidemic areas to isolate, Reuters reported.
The province, on the Russian border, has been flagging infected residents coming from Russia, where virus activity is accelerating. China’s National Health Commission yesterday reported 30 new cases, 7 of them local cases from Heilongjiang province.
Singapore’s health ministry yesterday reported 1,106 new cases, part of a surge mainly linked to foreign workers living in tightly packed dorms. Of yesterday’s new cases, 967 were linked to the dorms.
In Taiwan, health officials reported an outbreak on a Navy supply ship that had recently visited Palau, Bloomberg News reported. Twenty-eight sailors tested positive for COVID-19.
