Herd immunity will not be reached in 2021 despite vaccines, says WHO's Soumya Swaminathan

As the vaccination drive against coronavirus gathers pace across the world, the World Health Organization(WHO) has warned that herd immunity will not be reached this year.

Watch:

Add WION as a Preferred Source

WHO’s chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said: “We are not going to achieve any levels of population immunity orherd immunityin 2021.”

"Even if happens in a couple of pockets in a few countries, it's not going to protect people across the world," she added.

Swaminathan said best practices relating to the virus should be observed which includes hand washing, social distancing and wearing masks.

The WHO scientist said it takes time to "scale the production of doses, not just in the millions, but here we are talking about in the billions" while assuring that the "vaccines are going to come. They are going to go to all countries.”

“But meanwhile we mustn’t forget that there are measures that work.”

WHO senior adviser Bruce Aylward said: "Over 40 countries have now begun vaccinating against COVID-19 using five different COVID-19 vaccines. However, all of that vaccination or virtually all of it were in high income and upper-middle-income countries so far."

"We require the cooperation of vaccine manufacturers to prioritise deliveries to the COVAX facility, we require the cooperation of our financers to see through the financing necessary, and we require the cooperation."

As the new virus variant surfaced in Tokyo, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that as the virus spreads, there is higher the chance of a new change to the virus.

"Transmissibility of some variants of the virus appears to be increasing," Tedros informed.