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Covid-19 Endemicity

  • 01 Sep 2021
  • 3 min read

Why in News

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) India seems to be entering some stage of Covid-19 endemicity where there is low- to moderate-level transmission.

Key Points

  • Endemicity:
    • An endemic disease is a disease that is always present in a certain population or a given geographical region.
    • Some examples of endemics include chicken pox and malaria, where there are a predictable number of cases every year in certain parts of the world.
  • Endemic vs Epidemic vs Pandemic:
    • Endemic diseases are often confused with epidemics. However, an epidemic refers to an outbreak of a disease. An epidemic occurs when a disease is spreading through one or more populations. In contrast, the endemic disease is one that is constantly present in a group or geographic area.
      • Pandemics are worldwide epidemics. A pandemic affects more people and takes more lives than an epidemic.
    • Under certain circumstances, an epidemic can lead to a disease becoming endemic.
  • Reason for Covid's Endemicity:
    • Only those pathogens can be eradicated that don’t have animals (another species) as a reservoir.
      • Smallpox and polio are human virus examples, rinderpest is a cattle virus.
    • It means if there is a virus/pathogen that is present in some animal reservoir then it can transmit again once the level of immunity wanes in the population against the disease caused by it.
    • In the case of coronavirus disease, it will continue to circulate as it is present in the animal reservoir.
  • Implications:
    • On Immunity:
      • If enough people are vaccinated or have been exposed to the infection, then the virus will cause symptomatic infection but not disease.
    • On Future Cases:
      • As long as the new variant does not come with much more transmissibility than Delta variant, it is more likely that there will be a steady level of cases, with some regions, especially of low prior seroprevalence and low vaccination rates, seeing spikes.

Source: IE

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