The WHO has turned its attention to the rising rates of COVID-19 infection in Eastern Europe, where in six countries, including Russia and Ukraine, the number of cases has doubled in the past two weeks.

The region of 53 countries, which stretches from the former Soviet republics to Central Asia, now has more than 165 million confirmed coronavirus cases and 1.8 million pandemic-related deaths, according to WHO Regional Director for Europe Hans Kluge, including 25,000 in just the last week, AP reported.

"Today, our focus is towards the east of the WHO European region," Kluge said in Russian at a media briefing, pointing to a surge in the highly transmissible omicron variant. "Over the past two weeks, cases of COVID-19 have more than doubled in six countries in this part of the region (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine)."

"As anticipated, the omicron wave is moving east: 10 eastern Member States have now detected this variant," he said.