Health

WHO: Covid-19 cases have doubled in a month

Geneva, Jul 30 (EFE).- The World Health Organization expressed alarm Friday over figures showing that coronavirus cases have doubled over the past four weeks in five of its six regions.

“Hard-won gains are in jeopardy or being lost, and health systems in many countries are being overwhelmed,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a media briefing in Geneva.

Tedros noted that Covid-19 deaths in Africa have increased by 80 percent in the last month.

“The pandemic will end when the world chooses to end it, it is in our hands, we have all the tools we need, we can prevent this disease, we can test for it and we can treat it, and yet since our last press conference cases and deaths from Covid-19 have continued to climb,” he said.

Tedros said that nearly 4 million cases were reported last week and that the WHO expects the total number of cases to surpass 200 million within the next two weeks.

“And we know that it is an underestimate,” the director-general said.

The former Ethiopian health minister said that the increase is being driven by the highly transmissible Delta variant, which has now been detected in at least 132 countries.

“WHO has warned that the Covid-19 virus has been changing since it was first reported, and it continues to change,” he said.

Even so, the WHO continues to insist that the approved Covid-19 vaccines provide “significant protection” against severe symptoms and hospitalization. EFE is/mp/dr

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