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Covid now in endemic stage

Covid-19 in India may be entering some kind of stage of ‘endemicity’ where there is low or moderate level of transmission going on, said the...


Covid-19 in India may be entering some kind of stage of ‘endemicity’ where there is low or moderate level of transmission going on, said the chief scientist of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr Soumya Swaminathan, in a recent interview.

The endemic stage is when a population learns to live with a virus. It’s very different from the epidemic stage when the virus overwhelms a population, said Swaminathan.

“We may be entering some kind of stage of endemicity where there is low-level transmission or moderate level transmission going on but we are not seeing the kinds of exponential growth and peaks that we saw a few months ago,” she said.

Samiran Panda, head, Division of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases, Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) had said last month that the Covid-19 virus may reach its endemic stage after a while, just like influenza, and the vulnerable population may have to take the vaccine shot annually.

“Mutation is normal for all viruses when they proliferate. Experts suggest that the Covid-19 virus will reach its endemic stage like influenza after a while and then the vulnerable population may have to take the vaccine shot annually,” Panda said.

He explained that influenza, commonly known as flu, was a pandemic 100 years ago but today it is endemic.

“Similarly, in the case of Covid-19, we expect that it will gradually become endemic from its current state of being a pandemic,” he added.

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