Corona cases rising in Russia, Eastern Europe: WHO

Ag AFP

GENEVA/DUBA/LONDON: New cases of COVID-19 reported daily are steadily declining in Western Europe, but not in hotspots in Russia and Eastern Europe, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

Spokeswoman Margaret Harris told a briefing: “At the moment in Europe, in Western Europe, we are seeing a steady decline. It’s not speedy but there’s a steady decline in new cases being reported daily, so that means that the number of new cases are still significant but the number is coming down except for Russia and Eastern Europe where we are still seeing the rise.”

The novel coronavirus has killed at least 380,602 people since the outbreak first emerged in China last December, according to a tally from the John Hopkins University.

At least 6,447,040 cases of coronavirus have been registered in 196 countries and territories. Of these, at least 2,950,812 are now considered recovered.

On Tuesday, 83,844 new cases were reported while the deadly virus claimed 3,412 lives.

Russia has reported 423,741 cases, the world’s third highest reported total, including 5,037 deaths. Harris said that she had no information on whether talks were still taking place with the Trump administration, which announced last Friday that it was leaving the agency over its handling of the pandemic. “I have no information on whether we were formally notified,” she added.

Meanwhile, Russia has developed a promising new treatment for the coronavirus COVID-19 which it could soon trial in partnership with Saudi Arabian health experts.

The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), the country’s sovereign wealth fund which has collaborated with the Kingdom on many investment projects, is set to unveil the new drug, Avifavir, at a virtual press conference in Moscow today (Mon).

RDIF said that the drug, which “has shown high efficacy in treating patients with coronavirus during clinical trials,” had received a registration certificate from the Russian health ministry.

Kirill Dmitriev, the RDIF chief executive, told Arab News: “We are in talks with our Saudi partners about possible supplies of Avifavir to Saudi Arabia. We shared with them the positive results of clinical trials in Russia. Our partners expressed interest in starting a clinical trial of Avifavir in the Kingdom.”