Omicron virus dangerous for unconnected people: WHO chief Tedros.
Highlight
- Omicron variant of COVID is dangerous virus, especially for those who have not been vaccinated: WHO
- Omicron causes less severe disease than Delta remains dangerous virus, warns WHO Chief Tedros
- WHO chief said this huge spike in infections is being driven by the Omicron variant
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday that the Omicron version of COVID-19 is a “dangerous virus”, especially for those who have not been vaccinated.
“While Omicron causes less severe disease than Delta, it is a dangerous virus, especially for people who are unvaccinated,” Tedros said during a media briefing on COVID-19.
He said this massive increase in infections is being driven by the Omicron variant, which is rapidly replacing Delta in almost all countries. The WHO chief also highlighted Africa’s COVID-19 vaccination rate and said, “In Africa, more than 85 percent of people have not yet received a single dose of the vaccine. We cannot end the acute phase of the pandemic until then.” Until we close this gap.”
“We are making progress. In December, COVAX shipped more than double the number of doses shipped in November, and in the coming days, we expect COVAX to ship its 1 billionth vaccine dose,” he said .
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He added that some of the supply constraints we faced last year are now starting to ease, but we still have a long way to go to reach our goal of immunizing 70 percent of each country’s population by the middle of this year. To do.
He said 90 countries still have not reached the 40 percent target, and 36 of those countries have vaccinated less than 10 percent of their population.
“WHO and our partners are actively guiding and coordinating these countries due to lack of supply visibility, short shelf-life of donated vaccines, limited cold chain capacity, vaccine confidence, health worker shortages and competitive priorities. are actively supporting to remove it,” he added.
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