WHO says the COVID-19 virus may be airborne.
WHO while acknowledging “emerging evidence” said assessing the evidence on airborne transmission of Coronavirus has begun.
On Tuesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) acknowledged “emerging evidence” of the airborne spread of the novel COVID-19 virus, after a group of scientists with in-depth research, sent proof of the airborne transmission of the respiratory disease to the global body.
In a news briefing Maria Van Kerkove, technical lead on the COVID-19 pandemic at the WHO said,” We have been talking about the possibility of airborne transmission and aerosol transmission as one of the modes of transmission of COVID-19”.
Earlier, WHO had said that the primary reason for spreading of Coronavirus is coming in direct contact of small droplets, expelled from the nose and mouth of an infected person. But in the Clinical Infectious Disease Journal, published on Monday, 239 scientists in 32 countries wrote an open letter to the Gene-based agency, outlining evidence that shows floating virus particles can infect people who breathe them in. This new found evidence had forced the scientists to write the letter to WHO and urge them to update its guidance.
A chemist who signed the paper at the University of Colorado said,” We wanted them to acknowledge the evidence. This is definitely not an attack on the WHO. It’s a scientific debate, but we felt we needed to go public because they were refusing to hear the evidence after many conversations with them”.
WHO says the evidence is not definitive:
Benedetta Allegranzi, WHO’s the technical lead for infection prevention and control accepted that the possibility of the newly emerged evidence cannot be ruled out but also revealed that the WHO will properly assess the aspects before updating its guidelines. She said,” The evidence, needs to be gathered and interpreted, and we continue to support this.”
If WHO does indeed realize the virus’s airborne transmission capability, then it will have to revise many guidelines, and all the social distancing norms will have to be re-evaluated.
