MOSCOW, September 28/TASS/. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports a decline in coronavirus fatalities across the globe, Hans Henri Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe, said in an interview with TASS.
"There is [an] increasing [number] of cases, but lower mortality and less people in hospitals, and less people in intensive care units," he said. According to Hans Henri Kluge, it would be premature to link this to a mutation. "One of the reasons may be that the elderly people know much better [now than before] <...> how to protect themselves and also the governments [know better than before what measures are needed — TASS]," he said.
"In several UN countries it was a catastrophe, with elderly people," he said, adding that now the governments and the elderly know what to do. "But again, in the winter this might change," he cautioned.
"Another lesson that [we can learn from] Russia <...> is <...> the coverage of influenza [vaccination]," the WHO official went on to say.
"Professor Popova from Rospotrebnadzor [sanitary watchdog] was telling me and also [Deputy Prime Minister] Tatyana Alexeevna Golikova that by instruction of the president up to 60% of the population is to be vaccinated. I think about 13% of the population or something is already vaccinated," he stressed.
"We think about COVID-19. First let us think about all the vaccines that we have already," Hans Kluge said, referring to flu and pneumococcal vaccines. The expert stressed that he planned to get a flu shot in Copenhagen.
In late December 2019, Chinese officials informed the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia. On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.