After Covid Confusion, WHO Finally Defines Disease That Spreads 'Through Air'

after covid confusion, who finally defines disease that spreads ‘through air’

New Delhi: When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in 2020 and spread across the world for the next three years, infecting millions of people, there was a lot of confusion about the mode of spread. A team of scientists had called on the World Health Organization (WHO) to acknowledge that the disease could spread through the air. Then in late 2021, WHO acknowledged that Covid was airborne.

Now, the WHO and around 500 experts have agreed for the first time what it means for a disease to spread through the air. On April 18, the UN health body released a technical document on the same in a bid to work out ways to better prevent this kind of transmission, both for existing diseases like measles and for future pandemic threats.

WHO Defines Diseases That Spread “Through The Air”

As per the document, the descriptor “through the air” can be used for infectious diseases where the main type of transmission involves the pathogen travelling through the air or being suspended in the air, in line with other terms such as “waterborne” diseases, which are understood across disciplines and by the public.

Physicists, public health professionals and engineers were among the 500 experts who contributed to the definition. Notably, many of them had disagreed bitterly over the topic in the past.

Historically, high levels of proof are required by the agencies before calling a disease airborne. The risk of exposure and severity of disease should also be considered, as per the new definition.

When Covid had just erupted in 2020, around 200 aerosol scientists publicly complained that the WHO had failed to warn people of the risk that the virus could spread through the air. They said the overemphasis on handwashing to stop the virus was a result of the same while the focus should have been on ventilation

The WHO, by July 2020, said there was “evidence emerging” of airborne spread of Covid. The agency’s then chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan later said, the WHO should have been more forceful “much earlier”.

New Definition About More Than Covid

The new definition was about more than Covid, her successor Jeremy Farrar said. However, he added that at the beginning of the pandemic, experts including the WHO acted in “good faith” as there was a lack of available evidence.

Farrar said getting the definition agreed among experts from all disciplines would allow discussions to begin about issues such as ventilation in many different settings, from hospitals to schools.

He compared it to the realization that blood-borne viruses like HIV or hepatitis B could be spread by medics not wearing gloves during procedures.

“When I started out, medical students, nurses, doctors, none of us wore gloves to take blood,” he told Reuters. “Now it is unthinkable that you wouldn’t wear gloves. But that came because everyone agreed on what the issue was, they agreed on the terminology… [The change in practice] came later.”