WHO warns of increase in Eastern European COVID-19 cases

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) European region director is raising alarm as COVID-19 infections rise in Eastern Europe, with six countries seeing a surge in cases, including Russia and Ukraine.

“Over the past two weeks, cases of COVID-19 have more than doubled in six countries in this part of the region (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine),” the regional director for WHO in Europe, Hans Kluge, said in a statement on Tuesday.

He added that the entire WHO European region has recorded more than 165 million COVID-19 cases to date, and 1.8 million people have lost their lives, including 25,000 in the past week.

Kluge noted that while vaccination is the best defense against disease and death, “too many people at greater risk remain unprotected: less than 40 percent of those aged over 60 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan have completed their COVID-19 vaccine series.”

“Bulgaria, Georgia and North Macedonia are also among those countries where under 40 percent of health-care workers have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine,” he added.

According to Kluge, countries should be cautious about lifting COVID-19 measures that have proven effective in mitigating the spread of the disease.

“Faced with the Omicron tidal wave, and with Delta still circulating widely in the east, this worrying situation is not the moment to lift measures that we know work in reducing the spread of COVID-19,” he added.

However, he added that while new variants could emerge, there are some positives to take note of, including “high levels of immunity gained through infection or vaccination, the end of the winter season with fewer people mixing indoors; and the lower severity of Omicron among those fully vaccinated.”