(MENAFN- Jordan News Agency) "Variants of concerns continue to pose further challenges to our response. To date, 21 countries have officially reported the detection of circulating variants of concern, and the Delta variant is most likely the main variant currently circulating in our Region," Al-Mandhari pointed out.
"Based on evolving trends over the past months, we have seen that countries with a high vaccination coverage and adequate implementation of public health and social measures report shorter waves of COVID-19 and fewer cases," he added.
"There are no shortcuts. We can break the chain of COVID-19 transmission only when we apply all available measures at once." Al-Mandhari noted.
He further added:"We must quickly and effectively scale up vaccination coverage and simultaneously apply all other preventative health and social measures, including maintaining physical distancing, handwashing, avoiding crowded and closed spaces, and mask-wearing."
"Ahead of potential COVID-19 surges, we continue to work closely with countries in the Region to upgrade their surveillance, sequencing, and testing mechanisms to prevent and better respond to these surges," he emphasized.
Al-Mandhari called for solidarity and equitable access to vaccines, to move towards the target of all countries protecting 10% of their population by September, 40% by the end of this year and 70% by mid of next year.
"While we know that the targets for 2021 will not be met in all countries, we must do our absolute best to come as close as possible and then to accelerate our efforts further in the months ahead," Al-Mandhari explained.
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