The World Health Organization on Wednesday warned of \u201cconcerning trends\u201d for COVID-19 ahead of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, calling for increased vaccinations and surveillance.<\/p>\n
While data is limited because many countries have stopped reporting COVID-19 data, the UN health agency estimated that hundreds of thousands of people around the world were currently hospitalized with the virus, reports AlArabia English News service.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe continue to see concerning trends for COVID-19 ahead of the winter season in the Northern Hemisphere,\u201d WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told an online press conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cDeaths are increasing in some parts of the Middle East and Asia, intensive care unit admissions are increasing in Europe and hospitalizations are increasing in several regions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But only 43 countries — less than a quarter of the 194 WHO member states — are reporting COVID-19 deaths to the agency, and only 20 provide information about hospitalizations, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe estimate that there are hundreds of thousands of people in hospital now for [COVID-19],\u201d said Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO\u2019s technical lead on COVID-19.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is a worry given that when we get to colder months, in some countries, people tend to spend more time indoors together, and viruses that transmit through the air like COVID-19 will take advantage of that,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
With influenza and RSV also circulating, Van Kerkhove emphasized the importance of testing, as well as vaccination.<\/p>\n
Tedros said while there is not currently a single dominant Covid variant worldwide, the EG.5 Omicron subvariant is on the rise.<\/p>\n
Small numbers of the highly mutated BA.2.86 subvariant have also now been detected in 11 countries, Tedros said. The WHO is \u201cmonitoring this variant closely to assess its transmissibility and potential impact,\u201d he added.
\nPreliminary data suggests that existing vaccines will give protection against BA.2.86, Van Kerkhove said.
\nOne of WHO\u2019s biggest concerns was how few at-risk people had recently received a COVID-19 jab, Tedros said, calling for the vulnerable not to wait to get a booster dose.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe increase in hospitalizations and deaths shows that COVID-19 is here to stay, and that we will continue to need tools to fight it,\u201d Tedros said.<\/p>\n
Last week, the WHO announced that a global knowledge-sharing platform about COVID-19 called C-TAP had secured three new licensing agreements to transfer vaccine\u00a0technologies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The World Health Organization on Wednesday warned of \u201cconcerning trends\u201d for COVID-19 ahead of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, calling for increased vaccinations and surveillance. While data is limited because many countries have stopped reporting COVID-19 data, the UN health agency estimated that hundreds of thousands of people around the world were currently hospitalized with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":138263,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-health"],"yoast_head":"\n