KUALA LUMPUR: The fight against Covid-19 and its variants is far from over for Malaysia despite the World Health Organisation's (WHO) decision to end the coronavirus global health emergency.
Experts said Covid-19 variants would continue to appear and it was important that Malaysians prepare for future global health emergencies.
They highlighted Malaysians' less than desirable attitudes towards vaccinations, which were clear with the poor take-up of booster shots.
Universiti Malaya virologist and research consultant Emeritus Professor Datuk Dr Lam Sai Kit said the virus would be with us for a long time, like dengue and influenza, and people must learn to live with it.
"Variants will arise from time to time, but we now have better knowledge and tools to handle future outbreaks.
"As we continue to battle Covid-19, we must prepare for the next one. For now, let us rejoice that the pandemic is behind us," said the senior fellow at Academy of Sciences Malaysia, who also headed the medical team that discovered the Nipah virus.
Lam, who is part of an international task force looking into the origins of Covid-19, said it was time for life to return to normal after three years of the pandemic and as severe cases decreased in the past year.
"Malaysia had independently adopted a stand that the Covid-19 pandemic transitioned to the endemic phase as early as mid-2022, almost a year before the WHO declaration.
"What is important now is to review how the world handled the pandemic and the many lessons learnt that can help us face the next pandemic."
He said Covid-19 had caused huge economic damage and led to changes in people's lifestyles, with online learning, video conferences and working from home becoming more accepted.
"The pandemic has shown us how small the world is and that whatever happens in one country can affect other parts of the world within days and weeks.
"This was true for previous epidemics like severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, avian influenza and Nipah, to name a few.
"We need to have better global coordination, equity and solidarity and make intelligent use of existing tools and technologies to combat new virus outbreaks."
After several months of curating scientific literature and interviewing prominent scientists, Lam said the independent task force found that there was hardly any evidence to show that the pandemic started from experiments in a lab, whether in China or elsewhere.
There was plenty of science-based evidence that suggested that the pandemic was the result of the virus jumping from wild animals to humans, he said.
Based on this, Lam and the task force, comprising 14 members, published a paper in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences with recommendations on how to be prepared for the next pandemic based on the One Health approach.
"The lab leak hypothesis is speculative, with no solid scientific evidence to date, and may distract us from making such preparations."
Public health expert Professor Dr Jamal Hisham Hashim said Malaysians should still have adequate protection against severe Covid-19 infection, hospitalisation and death due to herd immunity.
"I don't think our healthcare system will be overwhelmed like before, (even) if we get another wave of infection.
"As immunity against Covid-19 is not lifelong and as immunity from vaccination and reinfection wanes, people will get reinfected again unless they get boosters."
Malaysia's Covid-19 vaccination take-up rate was initially high, with 84.3 per cent of the population, or 27,532,071 people, completing primary vaccination.
But the take-up rate fell for the first and second Covid-19 vaccine booster doses.
Up to December last year, only 49.8 per cent of the population, or 16,279,553 people, had received the first booster dose and only 1.9 per cent of the population, or 633,319 people, had received the second booster dose.
On Friday, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the United Nations organisation was ending Covid-19's status as a public health emergency of international concern, the highest level of alert.
He said countries should now manage the virus, which killed more than 6.9 million people, along with other infectious diseases.
In Malaysia, 37,020 have died of Covid-19.
According to WHO data, Covid-19 deaths peaked at more than 100,000 fatalities a week in January 2021 to just over 3,500 in the week up to April 24, reflecting widespread vaccination, better treatments and population immunity from prior infections.