She added that it was impossible to predict when the third wave of infections would hit.
India might be entering the endemic stage of Covid-19, World Health Organization Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan said on Tuesday, The Wire reported.
According to the United States’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an endemic is the “constant presence and/or usual prevalence of a disease or infectious agent in a population within a geographic area
“We may be entering some kind of stage of endemicity where there is low level transmission or moderate level transmission going on but we are not seeing the kinds of exponential growth and peaks that we saw a few months ago,” Swaminathan told the news website in an interview.
The WHO chief scientist said that because of the diverse population and immunity status in various parts of India, it was quite likely that the situation might continue like this with “ups and downs in different parts of the country”.
Swaminathan added that this might particularly happen in places where the population is more susceptible. “So those groups who were perhaps less affected by first and second waves or those areas with low levels of vaccine coverage could see peaks and troughs for the next several months,” she told The Wire.
