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The European Center for Disease Control calls for “strong measures” to curb the virus in the EU

The director of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Andrea Ammon, on Tuesday asked the countries of the European Union to apply “strong measures” to stop the escalation of coronavirus infections. “Forceful action now will help us keep transmission levels low, ease the burden on the health system and keep most of them safe during these holidays and also in 2022,” the ECDC director told the health ministers of the EU countries, meeting in a council in Brussels.

Ammon explained that the “epidemiological situation in the EU is of high or very high concern” already with the delta variant as the dominant strain and could worsen with the emerging omicron. Of that lineage detected for the first time in South Africa, 634 cases had already been confirmed this Monday in 23 countries of the EU and the European Economic Area, a figure that is expected to increase. “At the moment, there are no serious cases or deaths among those detected, but it is still too early to decide what the level of danger is,” Ammon said.

The head of the ECDC added that preliminary “data” from South Africa and the United Kingdom “suggest that it is” more transmissible “and,” if so, omicron would cover 50% of infections in the coming months in the European Union. For this reason, he advocated applying “non-pharmaceutical measures, in addition to booster doses … starting with vulnerable adults over 40 years.” “The next holiday period is going to increase transmissibility,” added Ammon , who called for “avoiding massive concentrations, encouraging the use of masks, reducing contacts between groups, also in the social environment, and increasing testing and tracking capacity.”

In the same appearance, the executive director of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), Emer Cooke, indicated that in the case of booster injections a dose “different from the initial one seems very effective” to increase immunity. (Eph)

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