AFP, Ap and Sputnik
Newspaper La Jornada
Wednesday, March 23, 2022, p. 13
Chisinau. Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom, among other European countries, raised brutally
their anticovid restrictions and are now suffering an increase in cases due to the BA.2 subvariant, the World Health Organization (WHO) lamented yesterday.
At a press conference, the WHO director for Europe, Hans Kluge, stated that the number of covid cases is increasing in 18 of the 53 countries in the European area.
The countries where we see a particular increase are the UK, Ireland, Greece, Cyprus, France, Italy and Germany
he pointed.
In the last seven days, more than 5.1 million new cases and 12,496 deaths were registered in Europe, which brings the number of infections to almost 194.4 million since the pandemic began and the deaths to nearly 2 million.
Epidemiologists explain the increase in cases in the predominance of the omicron subvariant BA.2, which is 30 percent more contagious, but not more dangerous than its predecessor, BA.1. This variant corresponds to 35 percent of new infections, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The fifth wave observed in Europe is not yet over and experts indicated that in previous waves public health authorities in those nations let their guard down too soon.
Kluge told himself optimistic
well there is a large capital of immunity thanks to both vaccination and infections
and now that winter is over people will gather less in closed spaces
.
UNICEF has signed a supply agreement with Pfizer to purchase up to 4 million treatment cycles of the new oral antiviral drug nirmatrelvir/ritonavir (‘Paxlovid’) for distribution this year. In this way 95 low and middle income countries will have access to the antiviral.
The pandemic has caused 473 million 180 thousand 236 infections and 6 million 97 thousand 880 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
