As the coronavirus has killed almost 8,00,000 people and infected nearly 23 million around the globe, the World Health Organization (WHO) hopes that the deadly pandemic will be over in under two years.
While speaking in Geneva, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the Spanish flu of 1918 had taken two years to overcome the crisis. With the current advances in technology, scientists could enable the world to halt the virus "in a shorter time".
"Of course with more connectiveness, the virus has a better chance of spreading. But at the same time, we also have the technology to stop it, and the knowledge to stop it," WHO chief said. He also stressed on the importance of "national unity, global solidarity".
The WHO chief also described COVID-19 as a "once-in-a-century health crisis" asserting that while globalisation had allowed the virus to spread quicker than the flu did in 1918, there was also now the technology to stop it.
Highlighting, about the deadliest pandemic - Spanish flu, it killed as many as 50 million people and infected around 500 million around the world between February 1918 and April 2020.
Meanwhile, Prof Sir Mark Walport, a member of the UK's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) told BBC that Covid-19 was "going to be with us forever in some form or another. So, a bit like the flu, people will need re-vaccination at regular intervals."
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