New wave of infections driving in east Europe: WHO warns

International Health agency - World Health Organisation on Tuesday noted that another new wave of infections from the Omicron variant is driving towards in the east of Europe. With this, WHO also urged the countries to expand their vaccination coverage and follow the COVID-19 health protocols.

The health agency noted that in the past week, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Russia and Ukraine had witnessed a hike in the daily COVID-19 infection rate.

WHO's Europe regional director, Hans Kluge, stated, "Faced with the Omicron tidal wave and with Delta still spreading widely in east Europe, this worrying situation is not the moment to lift measures that we know work in reducing the spread of the COVID-19 virus."

Additionally, the Director-General of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, on Monday commended the vaccine equity in South Africa.

During his recent visit to South Africa, Director-General glimpsed first-hand progress underway at the WHO mRNA vaccine technology transfer Hub.

"We can bring the pandemic under control this year – but we are at increased risk of squandering that opportunity. Currently, around 116 countries are off track for our shared target of vaccinating 70% of the population of every country by the middle of this year," the Director-General added.

He noted that some countries have a high vaccination coverage rate, along with reduced Omicron severity which has driven a misunderstanding that the pandemic is over. Meanwhile, the countries with a low vaccine coverage and low COVID-19 testing paces is constructing exemplary conditions for the virus to produce new variants.

Besides this, WHO Director-General further asked the countries to speed up their COVID-19 vaccination drive and assist the international health agency in achieving its target of inoculating 70% world population.

He added, "By fostering local vaccine manufacturing capacity throughout the globe, supplemented by temporary intellectual property waivers for COVID-19 tools, will help bring this pandemic to an end and keep us all safer. By working together, across the public & private sectors, we can bring the pandemic under control and drive an inclusive and sustainable recovery."