Africa-Press – Botswana. The World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday underlined the need not to let one’s guard down when cases of Covid-19 and flu increase in Europe with the approach of winter.
On World Polio Day, the WHO cited the example of polio to justify the usefulness of vaccination. “This is not the time to relax,” WHO Director-General for Europe, Hans Kluge, said during an online press conference.
At the beginning of autumn, the European region, which brings together 53 countries, including some in Central Asia, is again the epicenter of the epidemic, accounting for 60% of Covid-19 cases in the world. At the same time, a spike in seasonal flu cases was recorded.
With this new wave of Covid-19, deaths and hospitalizations in intensive care are increasing only slightly, said the same source, underlining the relationship with vaccination. “Vaccination remains one of the most effective mechanisms against influenza and Covid-19,” he added.
This disease, which mainly affects children and causes paralysis, has almost disappeared from the western world, but a variant of the poliovirus derived from oral vaccines has recently been detected in the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Israel and New York.
More virulent than the natural virus, this variant can even cause severe symptoms such as limb paralysis in unvaccinated patients. Rare, this variant has developed further over the past few years due to poor vaccination rates in some communities.
“All over the world, if we leave people behind, the polio virus is a very good barometer to tell us who they are,” said WHO Europe expert Siddhartha Datta. “All over the world, if we leave people behind, the polio virus is a very good barometer to tell us who they are,” said WHO Europe expert Siddhartha Datta.
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