SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

(AL JAZEERA) — The high­ly in­fec­tious Omi­cron coro­n­avirus vari­ant caus­es less se­vere dis­ease than the Delta strain but it re­mains a “dan­ger­ous virus”, par­tic­u­lar­ly for those who are un­vac­ci­nat­ed, the head of the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) said on Wednes­day.

Speak­ing at a news brief­ing, di­rec­tor gen­er­al Tedros Ad­hanom Ghe­breye­sus said more than 90 coun­tries were yet to meet the tar­get of vac­ci­nat­ing 40 per­cent of their pop­u­la­tions and more than 85% of peo­ple in Africa were yet to re­ceive a sin­gle dose.

“We mustn’t al­low this virus a free ride or wave the white flag, es­pe­cial­ly when so many peo­ple around the globe re­main un­vac­ci­nat­ed,” he said.