WHO Official Praises Japan’s Pandemic Strategy, Warns of Ongoing Global Risks; Interview with Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove

By Yuichi Morii / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

2:00 JST, December 30, 2024

Maria Van Kerkhove, an infectious disease expert who helped deal with the COVID-19 outbreak as an official at the World Health Organization, praised Japan’s government for its COVID-19 response in an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun during her visit to Japan earlier this month.

She said that the government “really understood the need to act fast” and called its approach “evidence-based policy and not policy-based evidence.”

Reflecting on Japan’s decision-making process during the pandemic, Van Kerkhove remarked: “There were a lot of countries that set policies and then found the evidence to fit that policy. You … found science, used science as the core to drive the policy.”

She praised the government’s messaging on avoiding the three Cs (closed spaces, crowded places, and close-contact settings), describing it as “coherent” and “clear about what you needed to do.”

Looking back on the pandemic, she commented, “What was really heartening and encouraging was how the entire scientific world and public health world came together for a common goal.”

At the same time, she pointed out the darker side of the pandemic, noting that WHO officials and scientists became targets of hate, even receiving death threats.

Expressing concern about how much of the world now behaves as if the pandemic never happened, she warned: “The crisis is over, but COVID is not gone. The virus is evolving. It’s killing.”

In her current role overseeing infectious disease responses at WHO, Van Kerkhove expressed gratitude for Japan’s support.

She specifically highlighted the Japanese government’s pledge in September to donate approximately 3 million doses of mpox vaccines to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.