The World Health Organization (WHO) came under fire from medical experts around the world when it was reported that patients with COVID-19 who did not show symptoms are less likely to spread the virus.
During a routine press briefing on 9th June, 2020, Maria Van Kirkov, a WHO official and epidemiologist, said: “It seems that asymptomatic patients do not carry the virus, as we have detailed data from various countries which carried out comprehensive researches on contact tracing, tracking the cases of such patients, examining their acquaintances and not being able to detect virus transmission.
The statement drew strong reactions from doctors, journalists, epidemiologists and social media around the world on Tuesday, so much so that the World Health Organization (WHO) took to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to stream the question and answer live for further clarification.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that this was not a mistake, but that the word asymptomatic, used for patients, is misinterpreted. It is related with people who do not show symptoms or people who are ill or the disease Intensity is very mild.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said that research on the Corona Virus is progressing rapidly and that the statement was based on small number of research reports and data sets, not all Covid-19 patients were included during the research.
“I used the word “very few” and people misunderstood my statement. The rate of transmission of the virus by asymptomatic patients around the world is almost non-existent,” Maria Van said on Tuesday. She explained her statement was based on the limited amount of data set.
“It happens, I believe it does happen, but the question is to what extent,” said Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO Health Emergencies. It is unknown at this time that what amount of people could get infected by asymptomatic patients, but according to the WHO, some data sets suggest that the rate could be as high as 40%.
One of the confusions about this aspect is that many people are very contagious and can easily transmit the virus to others, even before they know they have the disease. They do this before the symptoms of the disease appear, which is a cause for concern because these people may show clear symptoms of the disease in a few days, but at first they do not feel sick and therefore their viruses keep spreading around.
According to Mike Ryan, “It means you are in a restaurant and you feel healthy and the fever starts, you don’t think about staying at home, but this is the moment when the viral load is very high.” Yes, the disease can spread at this moment and the disease is very contagious, which is why the virus spread very fast all over the world.
“Many Corona Virus patients are not completely immune to the symptoms, but the severity of the disease is very low,” said Maria Van. Hence, we use the term asymptomatic for such patients, which is completely wrong. These people do experience the symptoms but the severity level is very low and are never sure of the virus.
“When we say asymptomatic, we mean a person who has no symptoms, no symptoms of any kind,” She said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that the spread of the virus can only be prevented by social distance, hand hygiene, avoiding touching one’s face and tracing patients with symptoms. “It’s possible to stop the virus, it’s not contagious enough to stop it,” said Mike Ryan.
Also Read: Vitamin D & Corona Virus
 came under fire from medical experts around the world over the statem on asymptomatic patients.){kind=link}