London: Global eradication of the coronavirus is not currently a reasonable target, a special envoy on Covid-19 for the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Sunday.
“Humanity is going to have to learn how to coexist with this virus, preventing it from spiking and then surging and causing hotspots of disease,” Dr David Nabarro told British broadcaster Sky News.
“Eradication is not currently a reasonable target for the world,” he said, adding that people would need to be able to coexist for the foreseeable future.
Nabarro also said reports of a Nepal variant were being examined.
“Each time there is a sudden surge, it does stimulate in one’s mind the thought that there might be a new variant appearing. That wouldn’t be surprising.”
He said that will be “the pattern for the future,” adding “This virus isn’t going away any time soon, there will be variants emerging.”
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at next week’s G7 summit will urge leaders to commit to vaccinate the whole world against coronavirus by the end of 2022, Downing Street said on Saturday.
Britain will host the event in Cornwall in southwestern England starting on June 11 with leaders of France, Italy, Japan, Germany, the United States and Canada attending.
The British prime minister will call on fellow G7 leaders to make concrete commitments to “vaccinate the entire world against coronavirus by the end of 2022”, the statement said.
“Vaccinating the world by the end of next year would be the single greatest feat in medical history,” the Prime Minister was quoted as saying.
Johnson added that “the world is looking to us to rise to the greatest challenge of the post-war era: defeating Covid and leading a global recovery driven by our shared values”.
Downing Street pointed to the British government’s successes in backing the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and making it available at cost price around the world, as well as its support for the Covax scheme providing supplies to developing countries.
But facing growing calls to ensure a fairer global distribution of vaccine doses, the G7 health ministers at a meeting on Friday failed to break new ground, reiterating previous commitments to share doses through Covax “as soon as possible”. — dpa/Reuters
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