COPENHAGEN: Progress against the coronavirus pandemic remains "fragile" and international travel should be avoided, a World Health Organisation director warned on Thursday, while stressing that authorised vaccines work against variants of concern.
"Right now, in the face of a continued threat and new uncertainty, we need to continue to exercise caution, and rethink or avoid international travel," WHO’s European director Hans Kluge said, before adding that "pockets of increasing transmission" on the continent could quickly spread.
The so-called Indian variant, which might be more transmissible, has now been identified in at least 26 of the 53 countries in the WHO Europe region, Kluge said during his weekly press conference.
But he added that vaccines authorised by the WHO are effective against the new strain. "All Covid-19 virus variants that have emerged so far do respond to the available, approved vaccines," Kluge said.
In February, South Africa suspended its rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine after a study found it might be ineffective against mild and moderate forms of the South African variant, but "although confirmation in larger studies is needed", the AstraZeneca jab will still reduce hospitalisations and deaths from the South African variant, the WHO told AFP by email.
In the WHO’s European region, which covers parts of central Asia, the weekly number of new cases fell by 60 percent in a month, from 1.7 million in mid-April to 685,000 last week. Although the Indian strain is still being studied, "it is able to spread rapidly" and replace the dominant lineage in Europe, Kluge said.
Variants are "not in themselves dangerous, but they can be if they change the behaviour of the virus," the WHO said in a note published on its website, adding that further lockdowns might become necessary to stop a new strain spreading out of control.
So far only 23 percent of people in the region have received a vaccine dose, with just 11 percent having had two doses, Kluge said, as he warned citizens to continue to exercise caution. "Vaccines may be a light at the end of the tunnel, but we cannot be blinded by that light," he said.“Neither testing nor receiving vaccines is a substitute for adherence to measures such as physical distancing and mask wearing in public spaces or healthcare settings,” Kluge said. “Vaccines may be a light at the end of the tunnel, but we cannot be blinded by that light.”
Catherine Smallwood, the WHO’s senior European emergency officer, said it was difficult to know yet exactly how transmissible the India variant was. “There are three different sub-lineages in this particular variant of concern, and one of them has been shown to at least have a capacity to spread quite quickly in the presence of B.1.1.7,” she said. “We’ve seen this in several parts of the UK but also in other countries in the European region.”
The organisation was “tracking it very closely”, she said. “We’re learning about it. We’re pulling as much information as we can together in order to be making some more specific statements around its characteristics both in terms of transmissibility, but also in terms of its ability to evade any immunity.”
Meanwhile, the European Parliament and EU member states reached a deal on Thursday paving the way for a Covid-19 certificate that will help open up travel in Europe for the key summer season.
"We have white smoke," tweeted EU justice commissioner Didier Reynders after the end of a fourth negotiating session between MEPs and diplomats from Portugal, which holds the EU’s six-month rotating presidency.
The deal will allow for anybody living in the EU’s 27 countries to be able to get a digital health pass to display their vaccination status, results of Covid-19 tests or whether they have recovered from a coronavirus infection.
It is seen as a key tool to save the European summer vacation period, allowing countries dependent on tourists to reopen to visitors less likely to bring Covid with them. "This is an important step towards restarting EU free movement as safely as possible, while providing clarity and certainty for our citizens," said EU health commissioner Stella Kyriakides.
Other countries around the world have moved in the same direction, including Israel with its "green pass", and Britain, which has told its citizens that some international travel will be permitted in a week with an app from its National Health Service (NHS).
The EU’s health pass will initially be used only for travel within the European bloc. But the European Commission is working on it being mutually recognised with certificates from non-EU countries, particularly the United States.
France, Malta and the Netherlands are among the countries piloting the EU’s pass. The test involves making sure that digital keys used to authenticate the passes work correctly, and that it is interoperable across different countries’ systems.