Inside STAT: A disease detective on the frontlines of WHO's Covid-19 response

THE WHO'S MARIA VAN KERKHOVE SPEAKS DURING A BRIEFING ON COVID-19 AT THE AGENCY'S HEADQUARTERS IN GENEVA. (FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES)

All eyes have been on the WHO for the past several months as it tries to navigate — and help nations around the world make sense of — the Covid-19 pandemic, and on the frontlines of the agency's response is Maria Van Kerkhove, who heads the emerging diseases team. Kerkhove, an epidemiologist, has been part of the regular news briefings that the WHO has held this year, but most recently found herself in the middle of a firestorm, when she said last month that asymptomatic Covid-19 patients rarely transmit infection, a statement she had to quickly walk back. And much like other officials dealing with near-constant new information on the virus, “I was talking with my husband [recently] and I was saying I’m struggling at the moment with the pushback and the second-guessing and the challenging,” Kerkhove tells STAT's Helen Branswell. Read more here.