WHO: COVID-19  Claims Lives of  236 Thousand  Europeans by next December

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned today, Monday, that Europe could record 236,000 new deaths from the Coronavirus (known also by the UN organization as COVID-19)  by next December unless vaccination rates are accelerated.

Hans Kluge, Director of the WHO's regional office in Europe, said that the stagnation in vaccination across Europe is very worrying, and the number of deaths has risen by 11% in the region over the past week, according to the Telegraph, a UK daily newspaper.

The newspaper pointed out that Europe has recorded 1.3 million deaths due to infection with the virus so far.

Kluge attributed the increased transmission of infection to the outbreak of the highly contagious mutated "Delta" strain and the exaggerated easing of restrictions and procedures, as well as the increase in travel during the summer.

He noted that although nearly half of the European population received a full vaccination against the deadly virus, vaccinations decreased by 14% during the past six weeks owning to the difficulty in obtaining vaccines in some European countries and the reluctance to obtain the vaccine in other countries.

On the other hand, the World Health Organization announced last Wednesday that the pace of the spread of Corona infection around the world has begun to stabilize, after two months of the steadily growing number of infections.

The organization said in a statement that about 4.5 million cases of "COVID-19" disease were registered around the world during the week from 16 to 22 August, after more than 4.4 million cases were recorded during the previous week.

The organization stated that these numbers most likely indicate that the number of weekly infections begins to stabilize after its continuous growth over about two months.

The statement affirmed that the total number of cases of COVID-19 infection around the world since the beginning of the pandemic has approached 215 million, while the number of deaths caused by complications from “COVID-19” exceeded 4.4 million cases.