India Narrative

The World Health Organization (WHO) has sounded an alert about a mysterious liver disease outbreak affecting children in Europe and the United States as it said at least one death has been reported due to the ailment. The WHO said that it has so far received reports of at least 169 cases of “acute hepatitis of unknown origin” from a dozen countries. The cases were reported in children ranging from one month to 16 years of age, and 17 of those who fell ill required liver transplants. The UN health agency did not mention in which country the death occurred. The first cases were recorded in the UK, where 114 children were infected. “It is not yet clear if there has been an increase in hepatitis cases, or an increase in awareness of hepatitis cases that occur at the expected rate but go undetected,” WHO said in a statement. Experts say the cases may be linked to a virus commonly associated with colds, but further research is still going on. “While adenovirus is a possible hypothesis, inve

  The World Health Organization has warned that the Omicron variant of COVID-19 is spreading at an unprecedented rate and urged countries to act WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told journalists that the strain had been reported in 77 countries and had probably spread to most nations undetected "at a rate we have not seen with any previous variant". At the same time the WHO on Tuesday also gave reason for some optimism, saying Africa had recorded a massive rise in cases over the past week but the number of deaths were lower than the previous waves. However, it urged countries to act swiftly to rein in transmission and protect their health systems and warned against complacency. WHO expert Bruce Aylward emphasised against "jumping to a conclusion that this is a mild disease". "We could be setting ourselves up for a very dangerous situation," he added. Omicron, first identified by South Africa and reported to the WHO in late November, has over 30 spike

  Existing vaccines will still protect people who contract the Omicron variant from severe Covid-19 cases, according to a top World Health Organization (WHO) official. "We have highly effective vaccines that have proved effective against all the variants so far, in terms of severe disease and hospitalisation, and there's no reason to expect that it wouldn't be so for Omicron,” Dr Mike Ryan, the WHO's emergencies director, told AFP news agency. His observation comes at a time when the first lab tests of the heavily mutated new variant in South Africa suggest it can partially evade the Pfizer vaccine. Researchers say there was a "very large drop" in how well the vaccine's antibodies neutralised the new strain. But Ryan said there was no sign Omicron would be better at evading vaccines than other variants. He also said that initial data suggested that the COVID-19 symptoms in the case of Omicron were less severe than the Delta and other strains. Scientists