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Tag: Coronavirus testing

  • Study: No new COVID variants from China since zero-COVID policy lifted

    Study: No new COVID variants from China since zero-COVID policy lifted

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    Fears that China’s lifting of its zero-COVID policy could result in fresh coronavirus variants seem to have not (yet) materialized.

    A study published in The Lancet on Wednesday found there had been no new COVID-19 variants in the country since it lifted its draconian policy last year, a move which triggered a surge in cases and deaths.

    The analysis by researchers in China of more than 400 new cases in Beijing between November 14 and December 20 shows that more than 90 percent were of the Omicron subvariants BA.5.2 and BF.7.

    These variants are similar to the ones circulating in the EU/EEA during the fall of 2022, before the surge in cases in China, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said, and there is no evidence they pose a greater risk compared with those circulating in the EU/EEA now. 

    China has been criticized for its lack of transparency throughout the pandemic, including during this most recent wave of infections. 

    But the EU’s disease agency, the ECDC, confirmed that its own analysis — which included sequencing cases detected through airport arrivals in several European countries and wastewater analysis of airplanes arriving in Europe from China — found that BA.5.2 and BF.7 were dominant, although they cautioned that this wastewater data is “quite limited and are still being verified.” 

    While the authors of the Lancet study conducted their analysis in Beijing, they write that the results “could be considered a snapshot of China.”

    But others caution against such a leap.

    “The SARS-CoV-2 molecular epidemiological profile in one region of a vast and densely populated country cannot be extrapolated to the entire country,” write Wolfgang Preiser and Tongai Maponga of Stellenbosch University in South Africa in a linked comment in The Lancet. The two were not involved in the study. 

    “In other regions of China, other evolutionary dynamics might unfold, possibly including animal species that could become infected by human beings and spill back a further evolved virus,” they write.

    The prevalence of each of the two variants — BF.7 and BA.5.2 — varies from province to province, World Health Organization spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told POLITICO, referring to data from the China CDC.

    Travel restrictions

    China’s lifting of its zero-COVID policies at the end of last year led to EU countries recommending a raft of travel measures for visitors from China.

    At its last meeting on Friday, the EU’s de facto emergency crisis forum, the IPCR, decided to maintain these measures for now. The issue will be reevaluated at the next IPCR meeting scheduled for February 16.

    Europe’s airport lobby, ACI Europe, says it would like passenger testing to be dropped.

    “We support getting away from testing passengers as a way to track COVID-19, especially in the context of the comprehensive assessment issued by the ECDC on the lack of expected impact of COVID-19 surge in China on the epidemiological situation in the EU/EEA. Airports and airlines call for any travel recommendations to be scientifically driven and risk-based, which is regrettably not the case now,”Agata Łyżnik, communications manager at ACI Europe, the European airports’ lobby, told POLITICO.

    With additional reporting from Mari Eccles.



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    ( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

  • COVID-19 still a global health emergency, says WHO

    COVID-19 still a global health emergency, says WHO

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    The verdict is in: The COVID-19 pandemic is still a global health emergency, the World Health Organization has concluded. But it might not be for much longer. 

    The decision from the WHO — exactly three years after COVID-19 was first declared a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) — comes after a meeting of the COVID-19 emergency committee on January 27. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus concurred with the committee’s advice that there is a continued risk posed by COVID-19.

    The news comes as countries increasingly deliberate how to move forward from the acute phase of the pandemic, with the U.S. looking at annual COVID-19 boosters, for example. However, the committee found that, globally, there are still a high number of deaths from COVID-19 compared to other infectious respiratory diseases; vaccine uptake is still insufficient in low- and middle-income countries and there is uncertainty about emerging variants.

    But the reality is that the pandemic no longer poses the same threat as it did when it spread like wildfire through the globe in 2020. The committee acknowledged this, saying the crisis “may be approaching an inflection point.”

    As for exactly how the world will transition away from a PHEIC and into endemicity is still up for debate, with the committee acknowledging that it is unlikely that the virus can be eliminated from human and animal reservoirs. The committee recommended that a proposal be developed for an alternative mechanism that would maintain international focus on COVID-19, even after the crisis is no longer classified as a PHEIC. 

    For now, Tedros has asked countries to continue work in several areas, including maintaining their focus on vaccination of high-priority groups, improving reporting of COVID-19 surveillance data and increasing uptake of COVID treatments and tests.

    “Today’s announcement is a recognition that the global threat posed by COVID-19 is not over,” said Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. “While the world has made remarkable progress over the last two years, implementing the largest and fastest global vaccine rollout in history, we cannot afford to be complacent.”



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    ( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )