Tedros cautions of complacency despite Moderna results<\/p>\n
Reported breakthroughs in COVID-19 vaccine research are “encouraging,” the World Health Organization’s chief said on Monday, but voiced concern about surging cases and warned against complacency.<\/p>\n
“We continue to receive encouraging news about COVID-19 vaccines,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press briefing.<\/p>\n
Tedros, who has just spent more than two weeks in quarantine after coming in contact with someone with COVID-19, said he was “cautiously optimistic” that new tools would start to arrive in the coming months.<\/p>\n
But he added: “This is no time for complacency.”<\/p>\n
His comments came as hopes trials of a second candidate vaccine suggested it was nearly 95 percent effective against the virus.<\/p>\n
The news from US biotech firm Moderna followed similar interim results last week for Pfizer and BioNTech’s candidate vaccine.<\/p>\n
But WHO has warned that widespread availability of any vaccine remains a long way off, and COVID-19 cases and deaths are surging in many parts of the world.<\/p>\n
“Those countries that are letting the virus run unchecked are playing with fire,” he said.<\/p>\n
He voiced particular alarm about the situation in Europe and the Americas, where he said health workers and systems were being pushed to breaking point.<\/p>\n
“A laissez-faire attitude to the virus… leads to death, suffering and hurts livelihoods and economies,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The quickest way to open up economies is to defeat the virus.”<\/p>\n
The UN agency’s headquarters is experiencing its own outbreak of coronavirus, with Tedros spending 17 days in quarantine – though he said he had not developed any symptoms.<\/p>\n
Five new cases within the same WHO team have been registered in the past week, WHO official Maria Van Kerkhove said.<\/p>\n
AFP\/Global Times<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tedros cautions of complacency despite Moderna results Reported breakthroughs in COVID-19 vaccine research are “encouraging,” the World Health Organization’s chief said on Monday, but voiced concern about surging cases and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,24,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-opinion-analysis-article","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n