10 states receiving 95pc vaccines

The World Health Organization's European branch yesterday said 95 percent of vaccine doses so far administered worldwide were limited to 10 countries and called for a more equitable distribution. 

In terms of total doses the top countries are the US, China, the UK, Israel, United Arab Emirates, Italy, Russia, Germany, Spain and Canada.

"Collectively, we simply cannot afford to leave any country, any community behind," WHO's regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, said at an online press conference.

According to website Our World in Data, over 32 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered so far.

In the WHO's European Region, which comprises of 53 countries and includes Russia and several countries in Central Asia, 31 countries have launched vaccination programmes.

But despite the start of vaccination campaigns the speed of transmission observed in some countries due to new more contagious variants, especially the so-called English and South African ones, was worrying, according to Kluge.

"This is a concerning situation," he said.

Meanwhile, global health experts gather yesterday to tackle new strains of the coronavirus blamed for a fresh surge in infections after China recorded its first Covid-19 death in eight months.

The WHO emergency committee session comes with their colleagues seeking the origins of the virus on a long-delayed mission to the pandemic ground zero in Wuhan.

The 10-man-strong mission leader Peter Ben Embarek said they would enter a two-week hotel quarantine before the probe begins in earnest.

Almost two million of the more than 91 million people who have caught the disease have died, but the figures are widely believed to be an underestimate.

Much of the planet is facing a second or third wave of infections, with populations chafing under painful and economically damaging restrictions.

Lebanon went into full lockdown yesterday with residents barred even from grocery shopping.

France is hoping to avoid another national lockdown with the government due to announce tighter controls such as an extended night curfew across the country.

But there was better news for those who have already had Covid-19, with a British study suggesting recovery can confer immunity for at least five months.

The research will be welcomed by UK healthcare workers struggling to cope with surging caseloads and a new, more infectious strain of the virus.

That strain, and another identified in South Africa, was going under the WHO microscope in Geneva yesterday after being logged in dozens of countries.