"Last week, the number of cases rose by 10 per cent. This is taking place in the context of a rapidly evolving situation, a new variant of concern, the Delta variant, and in a region where despite tremendous efforts by the member states, millions remain unvaccinated," the WHO's Regional Director for Europe, Hans Kluge said at an online press conference in here on Thursday.
"Today we congratulate the people of China on ridding the country of malaria," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, was quoted in an official statement issued by the world body as saying.
Earlier in this month, the WHO included the Delta variant in its list of coronavirus variants of concern as the strain had become prevalent and has caused a resurgence of COVID-19 cases in some countries, including Russia.
At a press briefing on Friday, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the lack of vaccines in poor countries was exacerbating the delta variant's transmission.
"We have a huge number of countries currently that have had to suspend the rollout of their second doses of vaccine," Xinhua news agency quoted Bruce Aylward, Senior Advisor to the WHO Director-General on Organizational Change, as saying on Friday.
“We are now urgently trying to work with AstraZeneca itself as well as SII, the Government of India to restart those shipments so that we can get those second doses into those populations because we are running” to a longer interval “than we would have liked,” a WHO official said.
The head of the World Health Organisation has welcomed the vaccine-sharing announcements coming out of the Group of Seven summit but says "we need more, and we need them faster."
A top World Health Organization official on Monday said that the WHO cannot compel China to divulge more data on the origins of COVID-19
People will have to learn to live with the infectious disease, as there will be new variants emerging. This will be "the pattern for the futurea the Guardian quoted Nabarro as saying to Sky News.
Of the two billion COVID-19 vaccine doses distributed globally till now, about 60 per cent have gone to just three countries - the US, India and China, a senior adviser at the World Health Organisation said.
The two institutes sequenced genomes of coronavirus variants in Varanasi and adjoining areas. Their study reports at least seven major strains of coronavirus circulating in these regions.
The World Health Organisation's top vaccines expert says that immunising children against the coronavirus “is not a high priority”
WHO recommends that countries using the Sinovac vaccine in older age groups conduct safety and effectiveness monitoring to verify the expected impact and contribute to making the recommendation more robust for all countries.
Member (Health) in NiTi Aayog, Dr Vinod K Paul on Thursday addressed seven myths on India's Covid-19 vaccination program. He said these myths are arising due to distorted statements, half-truths, and blatant lies. India is in talk with Pfizer and Moderna for earliest import of vaccine.
While the WHO's official death toll due to Covid is around 3.4 million so far, the actual number could be at least 6-8 million, showed the global health body's annual World Health Statistics report 2021.
The highest numbers of new deaths were reported from India (27,922 new deaths; 2.0 new deaths per 100 000; a 4 per cent increase), Nepal (1,224 new deaths; 4.2 new deaths per 100 000; a 266 per cent increase) and Indonesia (1,125 new deaths; 0.4 new deaths per 100,000; a 5 per cent decrease).
The WHO chief highlighted that at least 63 million doses of vaccines have been shipped to 124 countries and economies, but they represent just 0.5 per cent of the combined population of those nations.
The Jaipur unit of the World Health Organisation (WHO) donated 100 oxygen concentrators to the Rajasthan government here on Monday.
North Korea has told the World Health Organization that it has tested 25,986 people for the coronavirus through April but still has yet to find a single infection.
The WHO on Monday said that the coronavirus variant first identified in India last year was being classified as a variant of global concern, with some preliminary studies showing that it spreads more easily.
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