JAKARTA - The COVID-19 Delta variant, which originally appeared in India, is becoming the dominant variant globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) chief scientist, Soumya Swaminathan, said on Friday, June 18.
Swaminathan also voiced disappointment at the failure of the CureVac vaccine candidate in trials to meet WHO efficacy standards, especially as highly infectious variants increase the need for new and potent vaccines.
The UK reported a sharp spike in infections with the Delta variant, while senior German public health officials predict the Delta variant will quickly become the dominant variant there despite high vaccination rates.
The Russian government has blamed the surge in COVID-19 cases on vaccination doubts and "nihilism" after Moscow's record new infections, mostly new Delta variants, fanned fears of a third wave.
"The Delta variant is on its way to becoming a globally dominant variant due to its very high transmission rate", Swaminathan said at a press conference.
The COVID-19 variant was cited by CureVac when the German company reported this week that its vaccine had only 47 percent efficacy in preventing disease, far from the WHO standard 50 percent threshold.
The company said it had recorded at least 13 circulating variants in their population study. Given that similar mRNA vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna recorded efficacy rates above 90 percent, Swaminathan said the world was expecting more in the CureVac vaccine candidate.
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"Just because it's another mRNA, we can't assume that all mRNA vaccines are the same, because each has a slightly different technology", she said. She added that the surprising failure underscores the clinical trial's strong value for testing new products.
WHO officials say Africa is still an area that needs attention, even though it only accounts for about five percent of new infections and two percent of deaths globally.
New cases in Namibia, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Rwanda more than doubled last week, according to the head of the WHO's emergencies programme, Mike Ryan, at a time when access to a COVID-19 vaccine was minimal.
"It's one of those tracks that is very, very concerning", Ryan said. "The sad reality is that in an era of multiple variants, with high transmission rates, we are leaving a large part of the population, the vulnerable African population, unprotected by vaccines".
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