Covid-19 is 10 times deadlier than swine flu: WHO

A woman uses a ventilator to breathe after contracting the Covid-19 coronavirus, in New York.
A woman uses a ventilator to breathe after contracting the Covid-19 coronavirus, in New York.PHOTO: NYTIMES

GENEVA (AFP) - The novel coronavirus is 10 times more deadly than swine flu, which caused a global pandemic in 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Monday (April 13), stressing a vaccine would be necessary to fully halt transmission.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual briefing from Geneva that the organisation was constantly learning about the new virus sweeping the globe, which has now killed nearly 115,000 people and infected over 1.8 million.

“We know that Covid-19 spreads fast, and we know that it is deadly, 10 times deadlier than the 2009 flu pandemic,” he said.


The Lancet review included estimated deaths in Africa and South-east Asia that were not accounted for by the WHO.


Vaccines were rushed out, but in hindsight, the West, particularly Europe, and the WHO were criticised for overreacting at a time when annual influenza epidemics every year killed between 250,000 and 500,000 people, according to WHO.

Tedros lamented Monday that some countries are seeing a doubling of cases every three to four days, but stressed that if countries were committed to “early case-finding, testing, isolating (and) caring for every case and tracing every contact” they could rein in the virus.


He pointed out that while Covid-19 had accelerated quickly, “it decelerates much more slowly”.





A vaccine is thought to be at least 12 to 18 months away.