Up to 41% of the world’s population may be asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19, but at the same time, it is not known what percentage of them can transmit the virus, said Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the technical team of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, as reported by RIA Novosti.
“By some estimates, between about 6% and 41% of the population may be asymptomatic carriers. But we know that some asymptomatic people and some people with symptoms can transmit the virus. So we need to know how many people have not shown symptoms, and what percentage of them transmit the virus,” she said during an online seminar in Geneva.
The expert stressed that the WHO does not have precise data on the number of asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19. “What do we know about infections? We know that many of those infected with COVID-19 will have symptoms. But there are those who have no symptoms. And most of the infections we know about occurred when people with symptoms transmitted the virus to others through respiratory droplets. And there are those who have not shown symptoms. The real question is how many people there are. We do not know that yet,” she said.
According to her, research on the topic of asymptomatic carriers is still scarce.
For his part, Michael Ryan, director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, stressed the importance of conducting a large number of tests to identify all carriers of COVID-19.
