The emergence of this new variant shows that the Covid-19 pandemic is not over yet, the official stressed, warning that there remains a high risk that infections with this disease would increase.
The WHO has registered more than 500 different variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide to date, and subvariant XBB has been detected in more than 70 countries, including more than 10 countries in the western Pacific, including Vietnam, as of last October he pointed out.
According to Pratt, quoted by the VNA news agency, studies have been carried out to better understand the ability of this variant to avoid immunity, that is, its ability to overcome the protective shield that current vaccines against Covid-19 provide.
The immunogens against this disease have managed to resist the new variants well and remain effective in preventing the exacerbation and deaths caused by Covid-19, he said.
Referring to the situation of the pandemic in Vietnam, he pointed out that last year the country entered the “sustainable management” phase and managed to efficiently balance socio-economic development and protect the health of its residents.
Despite the fact that there are still cases of Covid-19 here, there are no signs that hospitals and medical services are overwhelmed with infected people, he said.
In its latest report on the matter, the Health Ministry announced that 75 new cases had been detected in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of people infected to 11,525,646 since the pandemic began.
To date, 265 million 536,000 860 doses of vaccine against this disease have been administered nationwide.
ro/mpm