Breaking – Indian variant identified in Hungary! – UPDATED

coronavirus hungary metro
Photo: www.koronavirus.gov.hu
The Covid-19 variant first identified in India has been detected in Hungary, the chief medical officer told a press conference of the operative body responsible for the epidemic protection efforts on Friday. Of the two patients identified with the variant, one has already recovered and the other is treated in a hospital, but does not need a ventilator, Cecília Müller said.

Meanwhile, the pandemic continues to subside in the country, she said. The weekly average of new infections was 39 percent lower than on the previous week, she said.
Neither patient had travelled abroad prior to the infection,
and so the source is yet to be determined, she added. Müller noted that scientific consensus was growing on the vaccines already in circulation being effective against the Indian variant.

Meanwhile, the pandemic continues to subside in the country, she said. The weekly average of new infections last week was 39 percent lower than on the week before, she said. The fall was sharpest in the southern Somogy and Csongrad-Csanad counties, 57 and 53 percent respectively, while Vas county saw a 9 percent increase, she said.A majority of new infections is registered among the working-age population, Muller said, and urged caution and the observance of protection measures.

István Göyrgy, a state secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office and the head of the working group coordinating the vaccination campaign, said
Hungary was one of the countries closest to herd immunity,
with 90 percent of those registered, or 52 percent of the whole population, already inoculated.

The high inoculation rate helped Hungary defeat the third wave of the pandemic, but the presence of the Indian variant has raised the spectre of a fourth wave, György said.

Meanwhile,
Hungary has received 334,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, of which 175,000 will be administered as a first jab. Fully 280,000 AstraZeneca and nearly 70,000 doses of Moderna vaccines will be given as second jabs,
he said. The 84,000 one-dose Janssen vaccines will be used on vaccination buses, which have already serviced 24,000 people in remote localities, he said.
 
According to Reuters, Hungary has identified two cases of the coronavirus variant first detected in India, the government official in charge of vaccinations said on Friday.
Hungary has been badly hit by the pandemic,
and according to Johns Hopkins University data is the country with the most deaths per 100,000 people. An especially lethal third wave has been easing after an aggressive vaccination campaign.

“The Indian variant is present in Hungary,

 according to experts we cannot exclude the possibility of a new wave of the pandemic,” István György, deputy minister and head of the government’s task force on vaccinations, told a news conference.

Surgeon General Cecília Müller added one of the two patients has recovered already. Contact tracing was unable to establish how they were infected. Neither of them spent time abroad recently.

Fully 28 patients, generally elderly with co-morbidities, died over the past 24 hours, while 448 new infections were registered, koronavirus.gov.hu said on Friday. So far 5,084,642 people have received a first jab, while 3,445,557 have been fully vaccinated.

The number of active infections went down to 84,719,

while hospitals are treating 999 Covid patients who do not need respiratory assistance and an additional 121 who need respiratory support. There are 10,790 people in official quarantine, while 5,786,609 tests have been officially carried out.

Since the first outbreak, 803,567 infections have been registered, while fatalities have risen to 29,682. Fully 689,166 people have made a recovery. So far, most infections have been registered in Budapest and Pest County, followed by the counties of Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén, Győr-Moson-Sopron and Hajdú-Bihar.

Source: MTI

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