Pandemic won’t be over until 70 percent are vaccinated: WHO

COPENHAGEN: The WHO’s European director warned on Friday that the Covid-19 pandemic won’t be over until at least 70 percent of people are vaccinated, while deploring that the vaccine rollout in Europe is still "too slow".

"The pandemic will be over once we reach 70 percent minimum coverage in vaccination," the World Health Organisation’s regional director for Europe Hans Kluge told AFP in an interview. Kluge also said that one of his main worries was the increased contagiousness of new variants of the novel coronavirus.

"We know for example that the B.1617 (Indian variant) is more transmissible than the B.117 (British variant), which already was more transmissible than the previous strain," Kluge said. According to the Belgian doctor, speed is "of essence" in pandemic.

"Even when WHO declared a pandemic, many countries were still waiting, we lost valuable time." While the regional director, who has held the position since February 2020, lauded calls for solidarity he stressed that a speedy rollout of vaccines was of the utmost importance.

"Our best friend is speed, the time is working against us, the vaccination roll-out still goes too slow," Kluge said. "We need to accelerate, we need to enlarge the number of vaccines." In the 53 countries and territories that make up the WHO’s European region -- including several in Central Asia -- 26 percent of the population has received a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.

In the European Union, 36.6 percent of the population has received at least one dose, according to a count by AFP. Meanwhile, Malaysia announced on Friday it will impose a nationwide lockdown for the first time in over a year as it battles a rapidly escalating coronavirus outbreak that has strained the country’s healthcare system.

Officials believe more infectious variants have contributed to the surge, as well as gatherings in the Muslim-majority country during the holy month of Ramazan and Eid-ul-Fitr holiday earlier this month.

After a new daily record of 8,290 infections on Friday, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s office announced the entire country would enter a "total lockdown" from Tuesday. This involves the "complete shutdown of all social and economic sectors", with only businesses deemed essential allowed to operate, it said in a statement.

The restrictions will be in place initially until June 14. "The existence of new aggressive variants with a higher and faster infection rate has influenced this decision," it said.

"With the increase in daily cases... capacity in hospitals across the country to treat Covid-19 patients has become more limited." Malaysia, with a population of 32 million, has so far recorded a total of 549,514 cases since the start of the pandemic, and 2,552 deaths.

While moderate by global standards, its outbreak has increased rapidly in recent weeks, and the number of patients in intensive care and on ventilators has hit record highs. In Friday’s statement, the government laid out a plan for a gradual easing of curbs if the initial lockdown brings cases down. Authorities also pledged to step up the country’s vaccination rollout, which has been criticised as slow and chaotic, and to provide financial aid to those impacted by the lockdown.