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COVID-19 STATS

European health authorities warn of surge in Delta variant infections

European health officials are calling on countries to step up free testing and contact tracing to fight the Delta variant of Covid-19.

Published: 23 July 2021 16:41 CEST

European health authorities warn of surge in Delta variant infections

A person receives a dose of the Covid-19 vaccine in Barcelona. Photo: Lluis Gene/AFP

WHO Europe and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) issued a joint appeal on Friday for “reinforced efforts” by European countries to check the spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant, first detected in India.

“WHO recommends that countries increase access to free of charge testing, expand sequencing, incentivise quarantine for contacts and isolation for confirmed cases, strengthen contact tracing to break chains of transmission and ensure those most at risk among our populations are vaccinated,” the joint statement said.

It said data reported to WHO and the ECDC shows that between June 28th and July 22th the Delta variant was dominant in 19 countries of the 28 countries that reported sufficiently complete genetic sequencing information.

The number of cases surged this week by nine percent worldwide, up 26 percent in Europe and 60 percent in the United States, spurred on by the Delta variant, according to an AFP survey.

The ECDC, which tracks the 27 EU countries and three non-EU countries, said it raised from low to moderate its level of concern for the pandemic in Europe and expressed a high level of concern for four countries: Spain, Portugal, Malta and Cyprus.

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Italian hospitals under pressure as flu and Covid cases rise

Emergency rooms in Italy’s hospitals are facing a “crisis”, doctors warned, as ever-increasing numbers of people in Italy are becoming infected with Covid and the winter flu virus.

Since Sunday, two patients in the northern city of Vicenza, a 55-year-old and 47-year-old man, are reported to have died of the H1N1 virus, a seasonal flu that’s been circulating since 2009.

A further three patients also suffering from the virus in the same Vicenza hospital, San Bortolo, were reportedly in a critical condition as of Wednesday afternoon.

Matteo Bassetti, director of infectious diseases at the San Martino hospital in Genoa, blamed the outbreak on the authorities’ failure to conduct an effective seasonal vaccine campaign.

“The vaccination campaign was disastrous and these are the results,” he told journalists.

Italy’s Federation of Oncologists, Cardiologists and Hematologists, Foce, on Wednesday published an appeal to government to address the growing crisis.

“For several weeks we have been witnessing the phenomenon of worsening chaos in our emergency systems. The emergency rooms are in a nightmare situation and the hospital wards are ‘under siege’,” the federation’s board wrote in a statement.

“It is clear that what was said at the end of July is not true, that is, that the Covid pandemic “had ended in terms of numbers”. The virus never disappeared,” they added.

“The current very acute emergency room crisis is therefore also due to the lackluster and inadequate influenza vaccination campaign, which has had much lower coverage than in previous years.”

Covid booster vaccines have been available to at-risk categories since October in most Italian regions, and to the general public since early December, but a lack of publicity is being blamed for the fact that many doctors, as well as patients, were unaware that the vaccine was available.

Vicenza’s local health authority has urged residents to get vaccinated as soon as possible and encouraged the use of masks in the event of an infection.

Spain on Monday reinstated a requirement to wear masks in hospitals as the country faced a major flu outbreak and Covid cases surged.

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