The World Health Organization monitors “worrying trends” in Covid before the winter
Today (Wednesday), the World Health Organization alerted to “worrying trends” in the disease “Covid-19” before the onset of winter in the northern hemisphere, calling for increased vaccination and monitoring operations, according to what Agence France-Presse reported.
In light of the limited data after many countries stopped reporting “Covid” data, the United Nations organization estimated that hundreds of thousands of people around the world are currently in hospitals due to infection with the virus.
Director of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in an online press conference: “We are still seeing worrying trends in (Covid-19) before the winter season in the Northern Hemisphere… Deaths are increasing in some parts of the Middle East and Asia, and cases of infection are increasing.” Admissions to intensive care units are increasing in Europe, and hospital admissions are increasing in several regions.
He explained that only 43 countries, which is less than a quarter of the 194 member states of the World Health Organization, report deaths resulting from Covid to the organization, and only 20 countries send it information about cases that require hospitalization.
Maria Van Kerkhove, Technical Director for Covid-19 at the World Health Organization, said: “We estimate that there are hundreds of thousands of people in hospital now due to Covid… This is a concern given that when we reach… In the colder months, in some countries, people tend to spend more time indoors together, and this will be an opportunity that airborne viruses such as (Covid) will benefit from.
With influenza and respiratory syncytial virus also spreading, Van Kerkhove stressed the importance of getting tested as well as getting vaccinated.
For his part, Tedros said that although there is not a single dominant mutant of the “Corona” virus around the world currently, the “Omicron EG.5” submutant is becoming more widespread.
He added that small numbers of the highly mutated sub-variant “BA.2.86” have now been discovered in 11 countries, and that the World Health Organization is “monitoring this variant closely to assess its transmissibility and potential impact.”
According to Van Kerkhove, preliminary data indicate that current vaccines will provide protection against the “BA.2.86” variant.
Tedros said that one of the World Health Organization’s biggest concerns is the small number of people at risk who have received the Covid vaccine recently, calling on those in weak health not to delay getting a booster dose.
He said, “The increase in hospitalizations and deaths shows that (Covid-19) is here to stay, and that we will still need tools to combat it.”
Last week, the World Health Organization announced that a global Covid knowledge-sharing platform called C-TAP had obtained three new licensing agreements to transfer vaccine technologies.
