Europe

Real-world study shows strong performance of COVID antivirals Focal Foto / Flickr cc CIDRAP

A new real-world study in Greece finds that for high-risk patients, COVID-19 antivirals are highly effective in reducing the risk of both hospitalization and death. The study is published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases.

Patients who were older than 75, and reported good drug adherence benefitted the most from the drugs molnupiravir (Lagevrio) and nirmatrelvir/ritonavir (Paxlovid)

Global Covid cases up 80% as new subvariant rises The number of new Covid-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80 percent in the last month, the World Health Organization said on Friday, days after designating a new "variant of interest". France 24

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Many of the new cases came in the Western Pacific region, which saw infections jump by 137 percent, the WHO said.

Several countries in the Northern Hemisphere, including the United States, United Kingdom, France and Japan have seen a summer uptick in cases in recent weeks.

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A new Covid variant dubbed Eris has emerged as hospital admissions spike amid bad weather and waning immunity this summer.

A descendant of Omicron, Eris, or EG.5.1, was first classified as a variant in the UK on 31 July, but now accounts for one in 10 Covid cases.

It is now the second most prevalent variant in the UK, after Arcturus which makes up almost half of all infection cases at 39.4 per cent, according to UKHSA.

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