WHO official epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove made the statement at a briefing in Geneva, where officials from the global health agency said that new coronavirus cases had their biggest daily increase ever and countries must continue with efforts to contain the virus.
World Health Organization (WHO) official said late on Monday that people with the Sars-Cov-2 may not be infectious if they are ‘asymptomatic’, a significant new claim about the understanding of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) that experts around the world said could be premature.
“From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual,” said Van Kerkhove, head of WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, said at a news briefing from the United Nations agency’s Geneva headquarters. “It’s very rare.”
These asymptomatic cases, she said, were identified through contact tracing of known patients and the lack of onward transmission by asymptomatic individuals was based on data from countries carrying out detailed contact tracing. “Much of that has been published in the literature yet,” she said, adding that the agency was reviewing such data to be sure.
