Cases rising among youth in Europe
Europe is entering a "tricky moment" with the new school year, and while classrooms have not played a major role in spreading coronavirus, there is growing evidence of youth infecting others at social gatherings, the World Health Organization said yesterday.
Throughout the summer, countries on the continent have recorded higher numbers of Covid-19 infections among young people, Hans Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe, told a news briefing.
"It may be that the younger people are not necessarily going to die from it, but it's a tornado with a long tail. It's a multi-organ disease, so the virus is really attacking the lungs, but also the heart and other organs," Kluge said.
"Younger people, particularly with the winter coming, will be in closer contact with the elder population," he said.
Older people and at-risk groups must protect themselves with a flu vaccination as winter approaches, a season when more hospitalisations and deaths may be expected, he added.
Kluge, asked about concerns that schools could become a driver of infection, said that WHO's 53 European member states would discuss the issue in meetings on August 31 and in mid-September.
Meanwhile, Germany and France drew up tougher rules yesterday in line with a growing number of countries battling a resurgence in infections with Paris making masks obligatory in all public places in a bid to curb a rise of new cases in the city.
Britain, South Korea and Rwanda are also tightening their restrictions as fears rise of a return to the draconian anti-virus curbs put in place earlier in the year.
India reported a record daily jump of 75,760 infections yesterday, taking its total caseload to 3.31 million as cases surged across the country, data from the federal health ministry showed.
India is the worst affected country in Asia and third behind the United States and Brazil in terms of total cases. It has posted the highest single-day caseloads in the world since August 7, according to a Reuters tally.
The pandemic has killed more than 826,000 people worldwide since surfacing in China late last year and more than 24 million infections have been recorded.
After previously encouraging people without Covid-19 symptoms to get tested if they have been exposed to someone diagnosed with the virus, US health authorities have abruptly reversed their position without a clear explanation.
The changes in guidance were quietly made to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website on Monday amid US media reports of political interference from the White House.
A new study looking at male and female immune responses to the new coronavirus may shed new light on why men are more likely to become seriously ill with Covid-19, researchers said Wednesday.
Researchers found that women mounted a more robust immune response involving T lymphocytes, which are a type of white blood cell that can recognize viruses and eliminate them, reports AFP. This was the case even among older women, the study found.
According to the authors, this could imply that men and women need different treatments.
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