Europe is only region with increasing Covid-19 deaths: WHO

The World Health Organisation says coronavirus deaths in Europe rose 5 per cent in the last week, making it the only region in the world where Covid-19 deaths increased.

The UN health agency said confirmed cases jumped 6 per cent globally, driven by increases in the Americas, Europe and Asia.

In its weekly report on the pandemic issued late Tuesday, WHO said Covid-19 deaths in all regions other than Europe remained stable or declined, and totalled 50,000 worldwide last week. Of the 3.3 million new infections reported, 2.1 million came from Europe.

It was the seventh consecutive week that Covid-19 cases continued to mount across the 61 countries that WHO counts in its European region, which stretches through Russia to Central Asia.

While about 60 per cent of people in Western Europe are fully immunised against Covid-19, only about half as many are vaccinated in the eastern part of the continent, where officials are struggling to overcome widespread vaccine hesitancy.

WHO said infections have been falling in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia since July.

Within Europe, WHO said the highest numbers of new cases were in Russia, Germany and Britain. It noted that deaths jumped by 67 per cent in Norway and by 38 per cent in Slovakia.

The health agency previously described Europe as the epicentre of the ongoing pandemic and warned that there could be 500,000 more deaths by February if urgent actions aren’t taken on the continent.

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