Pregnant women and new born babies in the basement of a maternity hospital converted into a medical ward and used as a bomb shelter during air raid alerts, in Kyiv, Ukraine on March 2, 2022. (EFREM LUKATSKY / AP)
Albania TIRANA / BERLIN / SANTIAGO / GENEVA / ATHENS / MOSCOW – The World Health Organization warned on Wednesday that the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict is likely to drive COVID-19 transmission ever higher and in turn increase the risk of large numbers of people developing severe disease.
"WHO is deeply concerned about the unfolding humanitarian emergency in Ukraine," said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu at a press briefing.
"Prior to the conflict, Ukraine had experienced a recent surge of cases of COVID-19. Low rates of testing since the start of the conflict mean there is likely to be significant undetected transmission. Coupled with low vaccination coverage, this increases the risk of large numbers of people developing severe disease," he said, adding that critical shortages of oxygen will have an impact on the ability to treat patients with COVID-19 and many other conditions.
Separately, a WHO panel on Wednesday backed the use of Merck & Co Inc's COVID-19 antiviral pill for high-risk patients.
The expert panel conditionally recommended the pill, molnupiravir, for patients with non-severe disease who are at high risk of hospitalization, such as the immunocompromised, the unvaccinated, older people and those with chronic diseases.
The recommendation was based on new data from six clinical trials involving 4,796 patients.
The WHO panel said it was also preparing recommendations for Pfizer Inc's rival COVID-19 antiviral pill, Paxlovid.
Pfizer's pill was shown to be nearly 90 percent effective in preventing COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths, compared with 30 percent for molnupiravir.
The recommendations from the WHO's Guideline Development Group (GDG) are aimed at helping doctors provide the best care for patients in fast-moving situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
The panel said that young and healthy patients, including children, and pregnant or breastfeeding women should not be given molnupiravir due to potential risks such as defects in a developing fetus, as shown in animal studies.
A nurse prepares a syringe before jabbing a resident in Sukth village, about 33 kilometers west of Tirana, Albania on Nov 16, 2021. (FRANC ZHURDA / AP)
Albania
The Technical Committee of Experts on the coronavirus situation in Albania decided here on Wednesday to lift the curfew as of Thursday, considering the current improved epidemiological situation in the country.
The curfew forbids the movement of people across the country from 11 pm to 6 am local time in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Speaking at a press conference, the director of the Public Health Institute in Albania Eugena Tomini said that in the last few weeks, the country recorded the lowest incidence in coronavirus cases, and that Albania has a "more favorable epidemiological situation than one week ago."
Some other measures against COVID-19 are still in force.
These measures include the quarantine time of five days for the people infected with COVID-19, the use of a mask indoors and the 30 percent capacity for gatherings in public places such as stadiums, theaters or cinemas.
Travelers that enter Albania will still need to present a vaccination passport or a negative PCR test 72 hours before their arrival, with the exception of children up to six years old.
A woman receives a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 at a vaccination centre in Santiago, on Dec 23, 2021. (JAVIER TORRES / AFP)
Chile
Chile began compulsory in-person classes on Wednesday for all students in the country, amid special health protocols to prevent COVID-19 infections and with almost 90 percent of schoolchildren vaccinated against the virus, President Sebastian Pinera said.
On the first day of in-person classes, Pinera stressed that school is a safe place because "all precautions and protocols" have been taken.
According to the Presidency, the Ministry of Education provided the country's educational facilities with protocols on health measures and epidemiological surveillance.
Travelers stand at a counter offering last minute flights at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany on May 11, 2021. Germany is removing all countries currently on its list of “high-risk areas” as part of a rethink of its coronavirus travel rules that will take effect on March 2, 2022. (MICHAEL PROBST / FILE / AP)]
Germany
COVID-19 restrictions for entering Germany are to be eased from Thursday, as the government no longer considers any other countries high-risk, it said in a statement on Wednesday.
In the future, the high-risk classification will only apply to areas where a more dangerous variant than Omicron is spreading, for example, the Delta variant, the government said.
Under the eased regulations, electronic entry registration will no longer be required for travelers entering Germany. However, the "3G rule," which stands for vaccinated, recovered or tested, will still apply upon arrival, although children up to the age of 12 will be exempt from this rule. Previously, it had only applied to children up to the age of six.
Germany's seven-day COVID-19 incidence rate has continued to fall after the Omicron peak, reaching 1,171.9 infections per 100,000 inhabitants on Wednesday, according to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases.
Daily infections declined from record levels of around 240,000 to 186,406 on Wednesday, around 22,600 less than a week ago, according to the RKI.
Pedestrians wearing face masks as a protection against COVID-19 walk near Kotzia square in the center of Athens on Dec 19, 2021. (ANGELOS TZORTZINIS / AFP)
Greece
Greece will lift its requirement of mask-wearing outdoors from Saturday, its health minister said on Wednesday, as COVID-19 infections are trending lower.
The advisory committee of infectious disease experts recommended the lifting and the government accepted the recommendation, Health Minister Thanos Plevris said.
"But it is highly recommended to wear masks outdoors when there is a lot of crowding," he said.
The move comes after the lifting of curbs that barred standing customers at bars and night entertainment establishments earlier this month and the resumption of school excursions.
Health authorities reported 15,557 COVID-19 cases on Wednesday and 57 related deaths, bringing the country's total number of infections since the first case was detected two years ago to 2.454 million and deaths to 25,972.
Pan American Health Organization
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) on Wednesday said that across the Americas the COVID-19 pandemic has placed the most vulnerable at greater risk and in a region rife with inequality women have been disproportionately affected.
An elderly couple wearing protective face masks against COVID-19 walks past the Pfizer Inc headquarters on Dec 9, 2020 in New York City. (ANGELA WEISS / AFP)
Pfizer
Pfizer Inc is expected to provide around 10 million courses of its highly effective COVID-19 antiviral treatment Paxlovid to low- and middle-income countries this year, according to an official with the Global Fund, a healthcare NGO working to buy the pills from the drugmaker.
The Fund's head of strategy for policy, Harley Feldbaum, said Pfizer had committed to at least that many doses and could increase shipments later if organizations involved show they are able to distribute the pills well, noting most will be available toward the end of the year.
"That's obviously not enough or sufficient" to meet the need in those countries, said Feldbaum, during an online meeting of non-government organizations, activists and academics hosted by influential consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.
It is unclear whether there is funding available globally to buy the pills and pay for the infrastructure necessary to distribute them.
Pfizer has said it will charge less for the drug in lower income countries, but has not disclosed a price. For wealthy countries, it said it plans to charge around $700 per treatment course – though its U.S. deal priced Paxlovid at $530.
"We are working with the ACT-A partnership on supply of Paxlovid for low- and lower middle-income countries as part of our commitment to equitable access for the COVID-19 oral treatment," Pfizer spokesperson Kit Longley said in a statement without providing details.
The Global Fund is part of the Access to COVID-19 Accelerator partnership (ACT-A), an effort by governments and NGOs like the World Health Organization to procure tests, treatments, and vaccines for lower income countries.
Russia
Russian capital Moscow will no longer require locals to use QR codes to prove they are vaccinated or immune to COVID-19 and is dropping all restrictionsat entertainment and sport venues, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Thursday.
The situation in the city is gradually normalising with fewer infections and hospitalisations reported, Sobyanin wrote on his blog.
