WHO sounds alarm over rising Covid deaths in Europe

Germany has rolled out the 'Impfzug' vaccination train to try to boost vaccine rates

The World Health  warned Monday that 236,000 more people could die from Covid in Europe by December, sounding the alarm over rising infections and stagnating vaccine rates across the continent.

The warning came as the world passed the grim milestone of 4.5 million deaths from Covid since the start of the pandemic, according to an AFP tally Monday. 

In South Africa, scientists are monitoring a new coronavirus variant with an unusually high mutation rate.

Its frequency remains relatively low, however, and it has so far been found in under three percent of genomes sequenced since it was first picked up in May -- although this has increased from 0.2 to two percent last month.

In another sign of renewed concern, the European Union on Monday recommended that member states reimpose travel restrictions on US tourists over rising covid infections in the country.

Case numbers in the United States have surged as the more infectious Delta variant has spread and large swathes of the population have refused to get vaccinated.

"Last week, there was an 11 percent increase in the number of deaths in the region –- one reliable projection is expecting 236,000 deaths in Europe, by December 1," WHO Europe director Hans Kluge said.

Of WHO Europe's 53 member states, 33 have registered an incidence rate greater than 10 percent in the past two weeks, Kluge said, mostly in poorer countries. 

Kluge said the Delta variant was partly to blame, along with an "exaggerated easing" of restrictions and measures and a surge in summer travel.

"In the past six weeks, it has fallen by 14 percent, influenced by a lack of access to vaccines in some countries and a lack of vaccine acceptance in others."

- Vaccines for teachers -

"Vaccine scepticism and science denial is holding us back from stabilising this crisis. It serves no purpose, and is good for no one."

As the summer holidays end, the agencies said it was "vital that classroom-based learning continue uninterrupted".

The agencies urged countries to vaccinate children over the age of 12 who have underlying medical conditions that put them at greater risk of severe Covid-19.

But some parents resisted the return to in-person learning, just weeks after Indonesia overtook India and Brazil as the pandemic's global epicentre.

"I feel bad because my daughter misses her friends but my priority is to keep my child alive and healthy," she added.

In the US, meanwhile, a woman has won a court order for a hospital in Ohio to treat her husband, who is on a ventilator with Covid-19, with the antiparasitic medicine ivermectin, as demand surges for the unproven coronavirus treatment.

Some 10,000 Covid deaths are now reported every day around the world, still a lower figure than the highs of January when an average of 14,800 people were dying daily.

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Originally published as WHO sounds alarm over rising Covid deaths in Europe