The probability that we will succeed in completely eradicating the Coronavirus seems less and less likely according to the World Health Organization.

Last May, however, Hans Kluge, the director of the WHO in Europe, affirmed that "the pandemic would be over when we have reached a minimum vaccination coverage of 70%" of the world population.

But the new, more contagious variants, mainly Delta, have changed the situation and now suggest that the disease will remain endemic.

At the time, even if the variant initially detected in India was already rife, "there was no such emergence of more transmissible and more viral variants," said the UN health official at a press conference this afternoon. Friday.

A vaccine to above all "prevent severe forms"

As a result, Hans Kluge called for “anticipating in order to adapt our vaccination strategies”, in particular on the issue of additional doses.

“I believe this brings us to the point where the primary objective of vaccination is above all to prevent severe forms of disease and mortality,” he said.

"If we consider that the Covid will continue to mutate and stay with us, like the flu, then we must anticipate how to gradually adapt our vaccination strategy to endemic transmission, and acquire very valuable knowledge on the impact of additional doses" , he added.

Vaccination "to reduce the pressure on our health systems"

According to epidemiologists, it now seems illusory to achieve collective immunity only through vaccines, but these remain crucial to contain the Covid-19 pandemic.

A very high level of vaccination also remains essential "to reduce the pressure on our health systems which desperately need to treat diseases other than Covid", underlined Hans Kluge on Friday.

Now dominant, the Delta variant is judged to be 60% more transmissible than the previous one (Alpha) and twice as much as the historical virus.

However, the more contagious a virus, the higher is the threshold necessary for collective immunity, that is to say the threshold of immunized people beyond which the epidemic stops.

This can be obtained through vaccines or natural infection.

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