COPENHAGEN • The World Health Organisation (WHO) yesterday said it would convene its European members to discuss how to handle a new variant of the coronavirus discovered in Britain.
Dr Hans Kluge, the WHO's regional director for Europe, said on Twitter that the organisation was monitoring the spread of the new variant and would "convene member states to discuss strategies for testing, reducing transmission and communicating risks", without specifying a timeframe.
WHO emergencies chief Michael Ryan tried to temper the alarm by stressing that the situation was not "out of control", shortly after a British minister used those exact words to describe the spread of the variant.
Europe is scrambling to thrash out a coordinated response to the new strain of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19. With travellers in Europe facing a nightmare holiday season, European Union ambassadors were set to meet yesterday to try to nail down a unified approach and work out how to eventually lift border restrictions with Britain - including by imposing a rule for tests on all arrivals.
The WHO's European region comprises 53 countries, including Russia and several Central Asian nations. The region has registered nearly 24 million Covid-19 cases and more than 500,000 deaths.
Dr Kluge said "limiting travel to contain the spread is prudent until we have better info", but cautioned that "supply chains for essential goods and essential travel should remain possible".
Over the weekend, WHO Europe urged stronger action to contain the new strain and called on members to "increase the sequencing of Sars-CoV-2 viruses where possible and sharing of sequence data internationally, in particular, to report if the same mutations of concern are found".
The strain in Britain has also been detected in small numbers in Australia, Denmark and the Netherlands, WHO said. Another variant with similar genetic mutations has been linked to widespread transmission in South Africa.
Dozens of countries - from Argentina to India - have banned flights from Britain in fear of the new strain which is reportedly 70 per cent more contagious.
The United States government is considering requiring that all passengers travelling from Britain receive a negative Covid-19 test within 72 hours of departure as a condition of entry, said airline and US officials on Monday.
According to the WHO, there is currently "no evidence to indicate any change in disease severity".
Concern over the mutated strain sent European stocks, oil prices and the British pound plunging, while changes in transport unleashed chaos for travellers and truckers ahead of Christmas.
REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
