WHO: Europe’s Vaccination Programme Is ”unacceptably Slow”

London, Apr 1 (AP) European nations’ immunisation campaigns against COVID-19 are unacceptably slow and risk prolonging the pandemic, a senior World Health Organisation official said Thursday. Dr Hans Kluge, WHO’s regional director for Europe, said vaccines present our best way out of this pandemic, but noted that to date, only 10% of Europe’s population has received one dose and that only 4% have been fully protected with two doses. As long as coverage remains low, we need to apply the same public health and social measures as we have in the past, to compensate for delayed schedules, Kluge said. Even those numbers hide the true scope of the problems facing the European Union’s 27 nations, where only about 5.6 per cent of its people have had a first vaccine shot, according to the bloc. In Britain, that figure is 46 per cent of its population..