World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adanom Ghebreyesus, during a briefing, warned of new challenges coming in 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic. TASS reports.
According to him, the world community is waiting for “new varieties of COVID-19”. He called for “to quickly share with WHO and other countries” information and information on the genomic sequence of the new strains of coronavirus detected.
Ghebreyesus noted that WHO is working closely with scientists from around the world to better understand new varieties of coronavirus and how they affect the ability to spread and cause disease in people. He stressed that countries “should not be penalized for sharing new scientific data in a transparent manner.”
Earlier, the head of the technical group of the WHO emergency diseases division, Maria Van Kerkhove, said that the mutation of the coronavirus will continue as it is a natural process. She added that WHO will continue to closely monitor new strains of coronavirus and interact with scientists around the world.
In September, a dangerous mutation of the coronavirus was first discovered in the UK; it began to actively spread in December. More than 20 countries, including Russia, have announced the suspension of transport links with the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, cases of infection with the new strain were recorded in a number of countries in Europe, Asia and North America.
