Interview: Health data firm CEO urges more global cooperation against COVID-19

This photo taken on March 28, 2022 shows packages of China-donated Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine at the Phnom Penh International Airport in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (Photo by Ly Lay/Xinhua)

by Martina Fuchs

GENEVA, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- More global cooperation is needed to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, Rasmus Bech Hansen, CEO of London-based health data firm Airfinity, has said.

One lesson to learn from the fight against COVID-19 is the importance of international cooperation, Hansen told Xinhua in a recent interview.

"The silver lining of all of this is that we can say that all countries are in the same boat right now ... And I think that opens up for a new era of collaboration between countries," Hansen said.

"It's not going to happen the next one or two months because of the wave, we just have to go past this terrible peak. But once we are on the other side of that, I would envision that this opens up for better collaboration," he said.

Commenting on China's response to the pandemic, he said "China was very good at early detection. They're very good at non-medical countermeasures ... which managed to keep China pretty much COVID-free for a long time."

A health worker administers a dose of COVID-19 vaccine to Anna Lujza Honecz from Hungary at a vaccination site in Tsinghua University, Beijing, capital of China, April 3, 2021. (Xinhua/Chen Zhonghao)

With Omicron much less pathogenic and deadly and China's treatment, testing and vaccination capacity steadily on the rise, China has downgraded its management of the infectious disease of COVID-19 from Class A to Class B, shifting the focus of the response from stemming infection to caring for health and preventing severe cases.

China was "very quick" to develop its own vaccines, and "in the first vaccine waves, they had high levels of vaccinations very early on," he added.

Considering the rapid spread of the Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5, Hansen warned of the risk of new variants emerging this year.

"At the moment, we are in a situation where many countries short-term will want to have more testing," he said.

"Vaccines are a cornerstone that saved 15 to 20 million lives. Vaccination is a key component to counter any future pandemic threat," Hansen said. ■