The
World Health Organisation (WHO) on Tuesday warned of a fresh wave of the
coronavirus in east Europe, including Russia and Ukraine. The UN body urged
authorities to improve vaccination drive and COVID-19 safety measures. 

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In
the last two weeks, COVID-19 cases soared more than double in Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Russia and Ukraine, the WHO’s Europe regional
director Hans Kluge said in a statement.

The
comments come at a time when several European countries including the Czech
Republic and Poland have hinted at easing of COVID-19 restrictions next month
if daily infection numbers kept falling.

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The
WHO stressed the need for conducting tests and wearing masks. So far, over 165
million COVID-19 cases have been recorded across the WHO European region, with
25,000 deaths in the past week.

“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,” Kluge said.

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He
also called on governments to examine local reasons for low vaccination rates.
Less than 40 % of those aged over 60 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria,
Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan have completed their COVID-19 vaccine
series, he said.

Meanwhile,
in the Global Action Meeting to battle COVID-19, the WHO asked all countries to
support the global target of 70%.

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“I
have just returned from South Africa yesterday, where I met with President
Ramaphosa and saw first-hand the progress underway at the WHO mRNA vaccine
technology transfer Hub. The commitment from the government and the private
sector is real,” said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

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“In
some countries, high vaccine coverage, combined with the lower severity of
Omicron, is driving a false narrative that the pandemic is over. At the same
time, low vaccine coverage and low testing rates in other countries are
creating the ideal conditions for new variants to emerge. We can bring the
pandemic under control this year – but we are at increased risk of squandering
that opportunity. Currently, 116 countries are off track for our shared target
of vaccinating 70% of the population of every country by the middle of this
year,” he added.