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Too soon to treat COVID-19 like flu as Omicron spreads - WHO

World Materials 12 January 2022 06:33 (UTC +04:00)

The Omicron variant of COVID-19 is on track to infect more than half of Europeans, but it should not yet be seen as a flu-like endemic illness, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday, Trend reports citing Reuters.

Europe saw more than 7 million newly-reported cases in the first week of 2022, more than doubling over a two-week period, WHO's Europe director Hans Kluge told a news briefing.

"At this rate, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation forecasts that more than 50% of the population in the region will be infected with Omicron in the next 6-8 weeks," Kluge said, referring to a research centre at the University of Washington.

Fifty out of 53 countries in Europe and central Asia have logged cases of the more infectious variant, Kluge said.

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