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The World Health Organization has criticized the “unacceptably slow” deployment of vaccines in Europe, saying that the increase in coronavirus infections in the region is “concerning”.
“Vaccines present our best way out of this pandemic … However, the deployment of these vaccines is unacceptably slow” and is “prolonging the pandemic,” WHO Director for Europe Hans Kluge said in a statement. .
“We must accelerate the process by increasing manufacturing, reducing barriers to vaccine administration and using every vial that we have in stock, now,” he added.
The organization said the virus situation in Europe is “more worrying than we have seen in several months.”
Five weeks ago, the weekly number of new cases in Europe had dropped to less than a million, but “last week there was an increase in the transmission of Covid-19 in most of the countries of the WHO European region. with 1.6 million new cases, “he said. .
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The total number of deaths in Europe “is rapidly approaching one million and the total number of cases is about to exceed 45 million.”
The WHO European region comprises 53 countries and territories and includes Russia and several Central Asian nations.
The organization warned that the rapid spread of the virus could increase the risk of worrisome new variants developing.
“The likelihood of new, worrisome variants occurring increases with the rate at which the virus is replicating and spreading, so stopping transmission through basic disease control actions is crucial,” said Dorit Nitzan, regional director of WHO emergencies in Europe, in the statement.
Yesterday, French President Emmanuel Macron extended movement restrictions to cover the entire country, saying schools would close for three weeks as he sought to roll back a third wave of Covid-19 infections.
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