In a mildly alarming update, the World Health Organization (WHO) acknowledged increasing evidence about airborne transmission of the coronavirus following a letter from scientists urging the group to update its guidance on the spread of the virus. The World Health Organization in a statement said it would put out a new scientific brief within days. “We have been talking about the possibility of airborne transmission and aerosol transmission as one of the modes of transmission of COVID-19,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead on the COVID-19 pandemic at the WHO, during a news briefing.
Notably, WHO had earlier confidently claimed that the coronavirus does not spread airborne, although it had admitted on several counts that there has been a reported possibility of aerosol transmission in a relatively closed environment with prolonged exposure like ICUs-CCUs in hospitals. But in an open letter to the Geneva-based agency, published in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal, 239 scientists in 32 countries outlined evidence that they say shows floating virus particles can infect people who breathe them in.
“Hand-washing and social-distancing are appropriate, but in our view, insufficient to protect virus-carrying respiratory micro droplets released into the air by infected people,” scientists wrote in Clinical Infectious Diseases journal. The problem is a matter of “heightened significance now when countries are re-opening following lockdowns bringing people back to workplaces and students back to schools, colleges and universities,” they said.
Following this, WHO acknowledged the fact and said, at a press conference, that they must be “open to this evidence”. “We acknowledge that there is emerging evidence in this field, as in all other fields regarding the COVID-19 virus and pandemic,” said Benedetta Allegranzi, WHO’s technical lead for infection prevention and control.
The United Nations’ specialized agency WHO said that they will soon publish a scientific briefing summarising the state of knowledge on modes of transmission of the virus in the coming days.
