The World Health Organization (WHO) said the Delta variant of Covid-19 would be dominant globally. This variant was first identified in India.
WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan expressed disappointment at the failure of the Covid-19 vaccine candidate CureVac in trials to meet WHO efficacy standards. This is because new highly contagious variants increase the need for new, effective vaccine injections.
"The Delta variant is on its way to becoming the dominant variant globally due to its increased transmissibility," said Soumya as quoted by Channel News Asia, Tuesday
The German public health authority also expressed the same opinion that this variant will quickly become the dominant variant despite increasing vaccination rates. Earlier, the UK also reported a sharp increase in infections of the Delta variant.
Meanwhile, the CureVac vaccine made by the German company reported that the vaccine proved to be only 47% effective in preventing disease, far from the WHO standard of 50%.
Given that similar mRNA vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna recorded efficacy rates of up to 90%, Soumya said that the world had been expecting more vaccine candidates.
On the other hand, he also said that Africa remains an area of concern, even though it only accounts for about 5% of new global infections and 2% of deaths.
“New cases in Namibia, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Rwanda have doubled in the past week. While access to vaccines remains very small. This is very concerning, African populations are very vulnerable, not protected by vaccines," said Mike Ryan, head of the WHO's emergencies programme.
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