Geneva: As India is in the grasp of a devastating second wave of COVID-19, World Health Organisation (WHO) Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan on Monday (local time) termed the rate of infections and deaths in the country as "worrying" and called on governments to boost exercises on reporting actual numbers.
In an exclusive interview with a news agency, Swaminathan said that the projections of one million deaths by August projected by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) are based on models and available data, which are not predictions of the future and can be changed.
"I would say that at this point in time, the situation is very worrying, the daily number of cases and deaths that we are seeing today in India and other countries in the Southeast area region is a big concern for us and we also realise that these are underestimates. Every country in the world, in fact, the number of cases and deaths has been underestimated to its true number," she told, adding that governments should boost exercises to report actual numbers.
The WHO on Monday said that the coronavirus variant first identified in India last year was being classified as a variant of global concern, with some preliminary studies showing that it spreads more easily.
"We are classifying this as a variant of concern at a global level," Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO technical lead on COVID-19, told a briefing. The B.1.617 variant is the fourth variant to be designated as being of "global concern" and requiring heightened tracking and analysis and data collection must be done in a transparent way, the Chief Scientist added.
"It should be done and we should be aware because the better the data, the better the policies can be directed towards what is happening. Let's remember, people are not just dying of COVID, people are also dying of other illnesses for which they are not able to access healthcare," Dr Swaminathan asserted.
Indian coronavirus infections and deaths held close to record daily highs on Monday, increasing calls for the Indian government to lock down the world's second-most populous country.
Soumya Swaminathan said studies were underway in India to examine the variant's transmissibility, the severity of the disease it causes and the response of antibodies in people who have been vaccinated. The WHO scientist called for more genome sequencing in India to get a full picture of what is going on in different parts of the country while saying that it should be hand-in-hand with clinical epidemiological studies.
"Sequencing does not give you the full picture. You do not know whether it is more transmissible, whether it causes more severe disease or what impact it has on your diagnostics," she said.
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While replying to a query on travel amid the pandemic, Swaminathan said that the Review Committee on International Health Regulations (IHR) has said that vaccine passports should not be a pre-condition for travel.
"The scientific reason is that just because you are vaccinated does not mean you cannot get infected. You can see infection or you could be asymptomatic but when you travel you may infect others. The ethical argument is that not everyone has access to vaccinations now," she said, while advocating safe travel with precautions.
She also said that the double mutant - B.1.617 - is highly transmissible and a WHO committee has classified it as a 'variant of concern'. "For now, the message is that it will be more transmissible, but it behaves the same way as other viral strains replicate the same proportions. Vaccines are still very effective against every variant in the world in protecting against severe disease and hospitalisations," she informed.
Swaminathan also called on countries to continuously update policies regarding the pandemic, which should be based on science and data.
"We have to continue to adapt our policies. We cannot become stagnant. What is needed first is to call strong leadership which is based on science and data at public health principles. That needs to be updated from time to time even if you take treatment," Swaminathan added.
The WHO scientist also urged data transparency in different countries and that people should be explained why certain decisions are being made and the rationale behind them.
'WHO strongly supports TRIPS waiver, not time to worry about patents, profits'
She said that the global health body strongly believes that Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waiver to COVID-19 vaccines at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) should be done.
"WHO strongly believes that the TRIPS waiver that has been proposed by India and South Africa should be done. DG Tedros has often spoken about this. This is not the time to worry about patents and profits amid the pandemic."
In October last year, India and South Africa, along with 57 members of WTO proposed a waiver from certain provisions of the TRIPS agreement for prevention, containment, and treatment of COVID-19. Trade experts say WTO negotiations on a waiver of intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines could take months - provided they can overcome significant opposition from some member countries.
Pointing that this time is crucial, Dr Swaminath said: "So yes, we would like to see that happening very quickly at the WTO that needs to be also accompanied by a technology transfer because vaccines are complex things to manufacture and it will take a long time for a company to learn from scratch if a patent is not implemented."
Scientists like Swaminathan have repeatedly said that the only way to combat this pandemic successfully is through a massive global vaccination campaign on a scale and timeline never before undertaken.
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This requires the production of effective tools and technologies to fight COVID-19 at scale and coordinated global distribution efforts. Although the WHO Chief Scientist did not predict the timeline of the waiver due to negotiations, she suggested that there is no need to wait for it and to start the technology transfer in a voluntary way.
"If a company decides that they will share their know-how and their expertise and their protocols for making a vaccine that has nothing whatsoever to stop them from including a licensing deal and that is what we are trying to promote we are saying that there are many ways of doing this," she said.
Speaking on vaccine equity across the world, she said that this global strategy should be one for solidarity and collaboration. "It should start getting better in the second half of the year when vaccines are ramped up, but in the next couple of months, supply is less than demand and so we have to use the supplies wisely and prioritise the vaccinations of high priority groups, such as health workers and those with underlying conditions," she said.
Earlier today, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the WHO Foundation was launching a "Together for India" appeal to raise funds to purchase oxygen, medicines and protective equipment for health workers.
India is currently battling a deadly second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is believed to being led by the 'double mutant'. The current wave has strained the country's health infrastructure and overburdened frontline medical workers.
(ANI)
