WHO concerned about spike in COVID-19 cases in Europe, Americas: Director General
Nov 17, 2020
Geneva [Switzerland], November 17 (ANI/Sputnik): The World Health Organisation (WHO) is concerned about surging COVID-19 cases in various countries, especially in Europe and the Americas, despite encouraging news about coronavirus vaccines, Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Monday.
Earlier in the day, US company Moderna announced that its mRNA-based candidate vaccine against COVID-19 had proven to be 94.5 per cent effective in Phase 3 clinical trials. This follows an announcement by Pfizer and BioNTech about their vaccine being more than 90 per cent effective in preventing COVID-19.
"While we continue to receive encouraging news about COVID-19 vaccines and remain cautiously optimistic about the potential for new tools to start to arrive in the coming weeks, right now we are extremely concerned by the surge in cases we're seeing in some countries, particularly in Europe and the Americas. Health workers and health systems are being pushed to the breaking point," Tedros said.
The WHO has confirmed a total of more than 54.3 million cases, including more than 1.3 fatalities, globally. (ANI/Sputnik)
