COVID-19 has not gone away, Holguín expert says
- Written by Lourdes Pichs Rodríguez
- Published in Health
- Hits: 1371
COVID-19 has not gone away, warned Dr. María Eugenia Escobar Pérez, a Second Degree specialist in Hygiene and Epidemiology, while recalling that pandemics come and go, but the viruses that cause them remain with low circulation.
“For example, this is what happened with the influenza A H1N1 pandemic in 2009. Cases detected by the surveillance system of this respiratory virus are still isolated in the country and in the world,” she said.
The expert added that few deadly viruses have disappeared on their own. “Among them is the SARS (a coronavirus) which was brought to extinction by monitoring the contacts of positive cases; it was now easier to trace contacts due to the severity of the cases.”
She explained that one of the properties of viruses is mutagenicity, as they change every time they pass from one living being to another, being different from the original. It is a way to defend themselves and escape from the protection provided by the vaccine and the antibodies formed when suffering from the disease.
“No vaccine protects one hundred percent, and there were inequalities in the world in the distribution of vaccines at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. Cuba manufactured its own vaccines which showed effectiveness.
“Four years after the arrival of this disease, subvariants and descendants continue to appear that put the world on alert, with an increase in cases in many countries, especially in stages during which there is great mobility of the population, due to vacations, festivals and travel, among other reasons.
“Many researchers propose the endemicity of the disease with an expected increase in winter. For these reasons, surveillance on respiratory viruses in certain risk groups is maintained in Cuba,” she added.
Hence the need to comply with protection measures by the entire population, but with emphasis on children, pregnant women, postpartum women, elderly people and risk groups due to underlying pathologies. The use of face masks and hand washing are among the actions that must be incorporated into the daily routine to avoid contagion.
Finally, Dr. Escobar Pérez pointed out that soon Cuban vaccines against COVID-19 will be part of the national immunization program and one dose per year will be applied to risk groups.
