The WHO’s technical lead on the Covid-19 pandemic, Maria Van Kerkhove, says that the actual rates of asymptomatic transmission aren’t yet known. She came up with that statement days after WHO’s statement over the asymptomatic patient, as stating them to be unlikely to spread the virus.
According to Kerkhove, she says, “The majority of transmission that we know about is that people who have symptoms transmit the virus to other people through infectious droplets”.
Furthermore, she noted that” But there is a subset of people who don’t develop symptoms and to truly understand how many people don’t have symptoms, we don’t actually have that answer yet.”
Her statement came as a clarification after outside health experts suggested that the WHO has mistaken or made errors while making a statement over the asymptomatic patient. She added, “We are constantly looking at this data and we’re trying to get more information from countries to truly answer this question.”
The email from Harvard Global Health Institution says that “The WHO created confusion yesterday when it reported that asymptomatic patients rarely spread the disease.” They explain, “All of the best evidence suggests that people without symptoms can and do readily spread SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. In fact, some evidence suggests that people may be most infectious in the days before they become symptomatic.”
It is crucial for health experts to develop the right strategies after determining the routes of transmission responsible on spreading of the virus. Kerkhove says, “suggests that asymptomatically-infected individuals are much less likely to transmit the virus than those who develop symptoms”.