While COVID-19 cases are declining in many countries they are still increasing in Central and South America, South Asia and Africa: WHO’s Dr Mike Ryan.
Geneva: Nations, where COVID-19 infections are settling, could still experience an “immediate second peak” if they loosen up very quickly on measures to curb the outbreak, United Nations body said on Monday.
World Health Organisation’s emergencies head Dr Mike Ryan told an online briefing, the world is still in the midst of the first wave of the coronavirus outbreak, while infections are declining in many nations they are still rising in Central and South America, South Asia and Africa.
Dr Ryan said epidemics often come in waves, which means that outbreaks could come back later this year in regions where the first wave has fallen. There was also a chance that infection rates could rise again faster if measures to prevent the first wave were lifted very quickly.
Ryan emphasized that there will be a first wave of the disease by itself, and then it recurs months later. And that may be a reality for many nations in a number of months’ time.
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“We cannot make assumptions that just because the disease is on the way down now it is going to keep going down and we are getting a number of months to get ready for a second wave. We may get a second peak in this wave.”
In recent weeks, many European nations and U.S. states have moved to lift lockdown measures that curbed the spread of the disease but caused drastic harm to economies.
Globally, the total number of COVID-19 cases nears 5,500,000 while the death toll crossed 346,000, as per the latest data from Johns Hopkins University.
(Inputs from Reuters)
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