WHO warns that coronavirus may never go away

The World Health Organization has warned that the COVID-19 coronavirus is not something the world can wait out. Public health officials believe that it may take years to contain, and may never fully disappear, according to The Hill.

Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist for WHO, told the Financial Times, "I would say in a four- to five-year time frame, we could be looking at controlling this." Swaminathan warned that the current pandemic could "potentially get worse" before it gets better.

"We have a new virus entering the human pop for the first time, and therefore it is very hard to predict when we will prevail over it," said Mike Ryan, director of the WHO's emergency program. "This virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities. This virus may never go away. HIV has never gone away."

"It is important that we be realistic, and I don't think anyone can predict whether this virus will disappear," Ryan said.

The comments come as a number of scientists working on the vaccine move into human trials on an accelerated time frame. Ending the coronavirus as a critical threat to humanity is much more complicated than simply drumming up a vaccine, as the vaccine needs to show promise and will have to be distributed on a mass scale in order to stamp out the virus.  

But there are viruses that have vaccines that cannot fully be eradicated. Measles, tuberculosis, and the seasonal flu are just a few among the many.

"We have many candidates and hope to have multiple winners. In other words, it’s multiple shots on goal," Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Tuesday.

"I must warn that there’s also the possibility of negative consequences where certain vaccines can actually enhance the negative effect of the infection. The big unknown is efficacy. Will it be present or absent and how durable will it be?"

Fauci predicted back in January that a new vaccine for the virus might be developed in a span of 12 to 18 months, and even that timeline is ambitious. The previous record for the fastest vaccine produced in the face of a new virus was four years, which was for mumps.

Even if a vaccine is developed and clears the strict hurdles in proving it is both safe and effective, it will take months before it can be produced on a large scale. Billions of doses are required to be both produced and distributed in order to stop the virus in its tracks.