COVID-19 Cannot Be Labeled As An Endemic Disease Like HIV

Illustrated (Irfan Meidianto / VOI)

JAKARTA - The statement by the Head of the WHO Health Emergency Team, Mike Ryan, who said that COVID-19 could be endemic or a constant disease in an area was considered controversial.

How could I not, Mike said that COVID-19 might never disappear from human life. He took an example, COVID-19 could be like HIV-AIDS, in which there will continue to be humans who have the disease and cannot be cured.

An epidemiologist from the University of Indonesia, Syahrizal Syarif, disagrees with the statement by the World Health Organization (WHO) team which equates COVID-19 and HIV-AIDS. According to him, there are a number of differences between the two diseases.

"HIV is a virus that attacks the human immune system. Currently, humans are the main source of transmission and home to the HIV virus. HIV is not a self-limited disease and has a long incubation period, even up to 15 years," said Syahrizal to VOI, Saturday. , 16 May.

Meanwhile, COVID-19 is a self-limiting disease or disease that will heal itself by the immune system. Humans are not the natural hosts of this disease. In addition, the incubation period for the corona virus is also faster than HIV, which is 14 days.

Then, to date, no cure and vaccine has been found to cure people with HIV-AIDS. Giving ARV drugs can indeed improve the quality of life of AIDS patients by taking medication for life, but still carry the virus for the rest of their lives.

In addition, HIV-AIDS is also a specific disease, which is clustered in risk groups or key groups that are socially closed. Early detection and contact tracing have become separate problems because they are related to key groups.

"This is what makes HIV difficult to eliminate from human life," he said.

Meanwhile, Syahrizal is optimistic that COVID-19 can be cured. Because, seeing the conditions when the world was attacked by SARS in 2002, the disease which is related to COVID-19 can be overcome within 8 months.

Moreover, COVID-19 is currently just entering its fifth month, and around 80 percent of infected countries in the world have shown a decrease in the transmission curve and the situation is gradually under control. The cure rate for this disease also reaches 95 percent.

"Even though it must be realized, there are various types of natural routes of transmission, namely imported cases, clusters, and local transmissions and this can lead to a new wave of outbreaks. However, it is possible that a good vigilance system can handle it," said Syahrizal.

"Therefore, I believe that COVID-19 will not become an endemic disease like HIV," he concluded.

As previously reported, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that the new corona virus that causes COVID-19 could be endemic just like HIV.

This statement was made by WHO considering that nothing can be done to predict how long the virus will spread, let alone deal with it. Therefore, WHO calls for massive efforts to overcome this condition.

"It is important to discuss it: this virus may become another endemic virus in our community. And this virus will probably never go away," WHO emergencies expert Mike Ryan said in an online briefing quoted by Reuters on Thursday, May 14.

"I think it's important for us to be realistic. And I don't think anyone can predict when this disease will go away. I think there is no promise in this and no date. This disease could be a problem for a long time, or maybe not," he added.