(Geneva) The World Health Organization on Tuesday ruled unnecessary travel bans that “will not prevent” the spread of the new variant of the coronavirus Omicron, while the COVID-19 pill from the Merck laboratory was approved by an independent committee.
“General travel bans will not prevent the spread” of this variant, said the WHO in a technical document, however, recommending that vulnerable and unvaccinated people, especially those aged 60 and over, “postpone their travel to areas of coronavirus’ transmission.
Possible hope for COVID-19 patients, a committee of American scientists spoke out on Tuesday in favor of the emergency authorization, in certain patients at risk, of the pill against this disease from the Merck laboratory in the United States .
The vote of these experts at the end of a day of discussions was however tight, with 13 for and 10 against, and the final decision on the approval of this drug will remain with the American agency of the drugs (FDA).
The Omicron variant continues to spread across the world: Tuesday evening, Brazil announced that it had recorded its first two cases, the first also in Latin America.
Faced with the panic which seems to take hold of the planet, the head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, called Tuesday for “calm” and asked for a “rational” and “proportional” response.
He said he was “concerned that several member states are taking general and brutal measures which are neither evidence-based nor effective in themselves and which will only worsen inequalities” between countries.
Since South Africa reported the appearance of this new variant last week, many states have closed their borders to that country and its neighbors, sparking anger in the region.
These measures “can have a negative impact on global health efforts during a pandemic by discouraging countries from reporting and sharing epidemiological and sequencing data,” the WHO warned.
Several months for a vaccine?
At a time when the world is wondering about the answer to be given to this variant with multiple mutations, the leader of the vaccine manufacturer Moderna, Stéphane Bancel, predicted in an interview with the Financial Times a “significant drop” in efficacy. current serums.
According to him, it will take several months to develop a new one. “All the scientists I spoke to […] say “This is not going to do it”, ”he assures us.
Various manufacturers, including Moderna, AstraZeneca, Pfizer / BioNTech and Novavax, have nonetheless expressed confidence in their ability to create a new vaccine against COVID-19. Russia has also announced that it is working on a version of its Sputnik V specifically targeting Omicron.
This new strain has now been spotted on all continents, but Europe, facing a new wave, seems the most affected and is stepping up measures to stem the pandemic.
Overwhelmed by an outbreak of infections, Germany put on the carpet Tuesday compulsory vaccination, which will be the subject of a law submitted to Parliament before the end of the year. “Too many people have not been vaccinated,” future Chancellor Olaf Scholz told Bild TV.
In the UK, wearing a mask in transport and shops became mandatory again on Tuesday and all arriving travelers must take a PCR test and self-isolate until the result.
Sweden, on the other hand, which had already distinguished itself at the start of the pandemic with lightly coercive measures, announced that it would continue on the same path.
“The Swedish measures have had effects that are not so different from the effects of measures taken by so many other countries,” pleaded the chief epidemiologist of this kingdom, Anders Tegnell, in an interview with AFP.
France reported its first case on Tuesday, on Reunion Island, in the Indian Ocean, and now recommends vaccination for 5-11 year olds at risk of severe form of COVID-19.
On Tuesday evening, two cases of coronavirus due to Omicron were also recorded in Switzerland.
In Asia, Japan, three weeks after easing certain restrictions, has banned since Tuesday “all entries of foreign nationals” and the government has confirmed its first case of Omicron, in a man returning from Namibia.
Canada on Tuesday banned travelers from Malawi, Nigeria and Egypt from entering its territory, bringing the number of countries – all Africans – affected by this measure to 10.
Exponential rise
Never has a variant of COVID-19 caused so much concern since the emergence of Delta, which is currently dominant and already highly contagious.
The WHO considers “high” the “probability that Omicron spreads globally”, even if many unknowns remain: contagiousness, effectiveness of existing vaccines, severity of symptoms.
Reassuringly, to date, no deaths associated with Omicron have been reported.
In South Africa, most of the new infections are already linked to Omicron, suggesting that the variant has great potential for spread.
On Tuesday, world stock markets and oil prices retreated sharply in the face of Omicron’s advance. Wall Street ended November sharply down 1.86%.
The COVID-19 pandemic has killed at least 5,206,370 since its onset in late 2019 in China, according to an AFP count.