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BFF-19
HEALTH-VIRUS-EUROPE-VACCINES
Europe vaccine rollout ‘unacceptably slow’, case surge ‘worrying’: WHO
COPENHAGEN, April 1, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – The World Health Organization on
Thursday slammed Europe’s “unacceptably slow” vaccine rollout and said the
region’s surge in coronavirus infections was “worrying”.
“Vaccines present our best way out of this pandemic… However, the rollout
of these vaccines is unacceptably slow” and is “prolonging the pandemic”, WHO
director for Europe Hans Kluge said in a statement.
“We must speed up the process by ramping up manufacturing, reducing
barriers to administering vaccines, and using every single vial we have in
stock, now,” he added.
The organisation said that Europe’s virus situation was “more worrying than
we have seen in several months.”
Five weeks ago, the weekly number of new cases in Europe had dipped to
under one million, but “last week saw increasing transmission of Covid-19 in
the majority of countries in the WHO European region, with 1.6 million new
cases,” it said.
The total number of deaths in Europe “is fast approaching one million and
the total number of cases about to surpass 45 million,” it said.
The WHO’s European region comprises 53 countries and territories and
includes Russia and several Central Asian nations.
The organisation warned that the rapid spread of the virus could increase
the risk of new variants of concern developing.
“The likelihood of new variants of concern occurring increases with the
rate at which the virus is replicating and spreading, so curbing transmission
through basic disease control actions is crucial,” Dorit Nitzan, WHO Europe’s
regional emergency director, said in the statement.
BSS/AFP/MSY/1334 hrs