Delta Variant Has Triggered Fourth Wave In Middle East: WHO

The World Health Organization said Thursday the Delta variant has led to a “surge” in coronavirus outbreaks triggering a “fourth wave” within the Middle East , where vaccination rates remain low.
The global health body said the highly transmissible strain, first detected in India, has been recorded in 15 out of the 22 countries and territories of the region under its purview, stretching from Morocco to Pakistan.

“The circulation of the Delta variant is fuelling the surge in Covid-19 cases and deaths in an increasing number of nations in WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean Region,” it said during a statement.

“Most of the new cases and hospitalised patients are unvaccinated people. We are now within the fourth wave of Covid-19 across the region,” said Ahmed al-Mandhari, director of WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean region.

As of the last week of July, “only 41 million people, or 5.5 percent, of the region’s population, had been fully vaccinated,” the WHO said.

Infections have increased by 55 percent, and deaths by 15 percent, within the last month compared to the month before. quite 310,000 case and three ,500 deaths are recorded weekly.

Countries like Tunisia, which has suffered the most important number of Covid-19 deaths in North Africa , are struggling to contain the outbreak.

Critical shortages of oxygen tanks and medical care beds have stretched the capacities of healthcare systems regionally.

WHO noted the rapid spread of the Delta variant was quickly making it “the dominant strain” within the region.

According to a recent paper within the journal Virological, the quantity of virus found within the first tests of patients with the Delta variant was 1,000 times above patients within the first wave of the virus in 2020, greatly increasing its contagiousness.