WHO Covid-19 lead Dr David Nabarro has offered a message of hope that the world can beat coronavirus, as Russia announces a vaccine against the virus.
And coughing remains the top way for the virus to spread from one person to another, Dr Nabarro warned.
He told RTE Radio One’s Sarah McInerney today: “I want to say to everybody, we will learn how to deal with this virus with more sophistication in the coming weeks and months.
“At the beginning it will feel a little bit clumsy but we will get it right.
“And I’m really impressed with the speed with which authorities are focusing on this.”
The WHO expert welcomed Russia’s announcement that they are close to completing trials on a vaccine against Covid-19.
Dr Nabarro said: “This is such good news.
“Actually, there are more than 100 potential vaccines being developed around the world that we know of, and I’m sure there are many more.
“What happens when you’ve got something that you hope will be useful as a vaccine is that you are expected to go through a number of trials where you test the vaccine on individual volunteers and then you also test it on larger populations.
“There are three phrases to these trials and we heard that Russia is taking its candidate vaccine into the third phase of trials.
“We have a few other vaccines at the same point, and we look forward very much to seeing the results of the third phase.”
After successfully completing the third phase, the vaccine can move on towards becoming available to the public.
He added that people must remain vigilant in regard to coughing near others, and said that coughing near someone when you have Covid remains the “primary mode of transmission”.
