translated from Spanish: WHO warns that delta variant will soon be dominant globally

The delta variant of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, first detected in India and much more contagious than previous versions of the virus, is present in at least 104 countries and will soon become the dominant global one, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned today.” The world is experiencing in real time how the virus continues to change and become more contagious,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference.Tedros confirmed that last week global deaths from Covid-19 (some 55,000) were slightly higher than the previous seven days, ending 10 days of declines and bringing the official death toll from the pandemic to more than four million.” The health emergency is worsening, and this threatens lives, jobs, and the global economic recovery,” warned Tedros.The director general stressed that the increase in new cases of Covid-19, favored by the expansion of the delta variant, is already being observed also in places with high vaccination rates, although the situation is “particularly bad” in countries where immunization is progressing more slowly.” This translates into high numbers of hospitalizations and deaths, even in countries that managed to control previous waves of the virus,” he said, recalling that low-income countries are once again suffering from problems in the supply of health protection equipment, oxygen and treatments. Tedros reiterated, as he has done for months, that the uneven distribution of vaccines is hurting the global strategy against the coronavirus.” Some countries are ordering millions of doses to give booster injections when others do not even have supplies to immunize their health workers and vulnerable populations,” he lamented.

Original source in Spanish