GENEVA: The head of WHO’s Emerging Diseases and Zoonosis Unit, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, while addressing a Presser here today has pointed out from the data available it seemed rare that asymptomatic persons actually transmit onward to secondary individuals.
However, Kerkhove later clarified what she meant was that the amount of transmission from people with no symptoms was unknown. Some experts said that even governments could take wrong decisions apropos lifting lockdowns by wrongly deciphering her statement that transmission of coronavirus by people with no symptoms was very rare.
However, earlier today at the Press Conference she maintained that more data and research was needed to truly answer whether coronavirus could transfer through asymptomatic carriers.
Dr Maria Van Kerkhove held: “We have a number of reports from countries that are doing very detailed contact tracing. They’re following asymptomatic cases. They’re following contacts. And they’re not finding secondary transmission onward. It’s very rare. Some studies have indicated asymptomatic or presymptomatic spread in nursing homes and in household settings,” she added. It is pertinent to mention here that asymptomatic patients never show sign of contracting coronavirus.
“The potential for presymptomatic transmission underscores the importance of social distancing, including the avoidance of congregate settings, to reduce Covid-19 spread,” Dr Maria Van Kerkhove asserted. She stated that seemingly asymptomatic carriers just did not recognize the signs of the virus: ”When we actually go back and say, ‘How many of them were truly asymptomatic?’ we find out that many have really mild disease, very mild disease.
“Comprehensive studies on transmission from asymptomatic individuals are difficult to conduct, but the available evidence from contact tracing reported by Member States suggests that asymptomatically-infected individuals are much less likely to transmit the virus than those who develop symptoms,”
Commenting on the confusion, University of Toronto’s Dr. Isaac Bogoch and Dr Allan Detsky pointed out that the issue might be of misuse of the term asymptomatic when referring to presymptomatic patients (who show no signs of contracting Coronavirus for the first few days before exhibiting and experiencing the classic symptoms.
While New Zealand has reached level 1, France and Canada has also commenced easing restrictions, it is yet not clear when the world will get rid of this Pandemic. Similarly how it transmits from one to other is also a matter being debated.
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