Coronavirus may never go away, WHO says

The new coronavirus may never go away and populations around the world will have to learn to live with it, the World Health Organization warns.

As some countries begin gradually easing lockdown restrictions imposed in a bid to stop the novel coronavirus from spreading, the WHO says it may never be wiped out entirely.

“We have a new virus entering the human population for the first time and therefore it is very hard to predict when we will prevail over it,” says Michael Ryan, the WHO’s emergencies director.

Michael Ryan, then WHO Director of Global Alert and Response of the World Health Organization (WHO), at a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland, May 2, 2009. (AP/KEYSTONE/Martial Trezzini)

“This virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities and this virus may never go away,” he tells a virtual press conference in Geneva. “HIV has not gone away — but we have come to terms with the virus.”

— AFP