The World Health Organization said it is "particularly worried" about the Covid-19 situation in the Balkans and Central Europe.

“We are particularly worried about the epidemiologic situation in the Balkans, as well as many other countries around Central Europe,” Catherine Smallwood, Senior Emergency Officer at WHO Europe, said during a news conference Thursday.

The current situation is “most acute in parts of the region that were successful in controlling the disease in the first six months of 2020. It is in central Europe, the Balkans and the Baltic states where case incidence, hospitalizations and deaths are now among the highest in the world,” WHO Europe director Hans Kluge said.

Kluge noted that case incidence in the region “continues its increasing trend and is moving eastwards. We have now seen three consecutive weeks of growth in Covid-19 cases with over 1.2 million new cases reported last week across Europe.”

The WHO's European region includes 53 countries, as well as Russia and several Central Asian nations.

While many countries around Europe are currently under “a partial or full nationwide lockdown,” some are gradually easing their Covid-19 restrictions, Kluge said.

“Some are doing so based on the assumption that increasing vaccination uptake in countries would immediately lead to an improved epidemiological situation. Such assumptions are too early to make. Let there be no doubt about it, vaccination by itself – particularly given the varied uptake in countries – does not replace public health and social measures,” Kluge said.

“Vaccines work, and will eventually allow a return to a new normal,” he added.