TIRANA, June 29, 2022 – Following a calm period that saw no fatalities and a steady but low number of new COVID-19 cases, there has been a spike in new positive tests in Albania in recent days and the first couple of deaths in more than a month, which has authorities calling on the population to get vaccinated and boosted.
June saw almost six times the active case number compared to May, with the positivity ratio of tests also spiking. On Monday, the positivity ratio, which indicates community spread, reached 24.5 percent.
At the end of May, there were 288 active cases in the country, while on Monday they were 1825, indicating a rapid spread of infections. More than half of the active cases are in Tirana.
Those are only official numbers and experts say the real ones could be as high as 10 times that number due to people not getting tested or being unsystematic.
Experts say a combination of vaccination and the less severe Omicron variant is resulting in less severe disease, but vaccination continues to be key.
In the last two weeks alone, the incidence of new cases increased from 22 to 82 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants. In hospitals, however, the situation, despite the increase in numbers, is not worrying. On Monday, there were only 17 patients receiving medical treatment.
Authorities are constantly reiterating calls for the need for vaccination, the pace of which has dropped significantly, especially since on April 26, almost all restrictive measures were lifted. In the last two months, official data show that a total of just over 71,000 vaccines have been administered.
Currently 57.5 percent of the population over the age of 16 have received at least one dose, while with two doses the vaccine coverage is 54.9 percent. Only 14.2 percent received the third dose. At the end of April, the Technical Committee of Experts recommended the implementation of the fourth dose of the vaccine for certain groups, but so far only about 1,100 people have received it.
Since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, Albania has officially seen 279,000 positive cases and 3,498 fatalities. The real numbers are likely much higher, several studies have indicated.
