World Health Organization's COVID-19 technical lead, Maria Van Kerkhove, on Tuesday (June 9) clarified her remarks that transmission of coronavirus COVID-19 from asymptomatic carriers was "very rare", asserting that it was a "misunderstanding".
"We have a number of reports from countries who are doing very detailed contact tracing. They're following asymptomatic cases, they're following contacts and they're not finding secondary transmission onward. It's very rare," she had said a virtual press conference on Monday.
Van Kerkhove's remarks sparked huge reaction scientists across the globe.
"Contrary to what the WHO announced, it is not scientifically possible to affirm that asymptomatic carriers of SARS-CoV-2 are not very infectious," professor Gilbert Deray of the Pitie-Salpetriere hospital in Paris said on Twitter.
Van Kerkhove later took to Twitter to post a WHO summary on transmission.
"Comprehensive studies on transmission from asymptomatic individuals are difficult to conduct, but the available evidence from contact tracing reported by member states suggests that asymptomatically-infected individuals are much less likely to transmit the virus than those who develop symptoms," it said.
During a discussion, which was rebroadcast on Tuesday, Van Kerkhove said she wanted to clarify a misunderstanding.
"I was referring to very few studies, some two or three, and answering a question. I was not stating a policy of WHO," she said.
"I used the phrase 'very rare', and I think that is a misunderstanding to state that asymptomatic transmission globally is very rare. What I was referring to was the subset of studies," she added.
