Thread by @TelGlobalHealth

🛑 The sheer scale of the crisis unfolding in India has grabbed worldwide attention, but its health system is not the only one under strain

In recent weeks countries ranging from Laos to Thailand have all been reporting significant surges in cases ~ 🧵
telegraph.co.uk/global-health/…

According to @who data, cases are the highest they have ever been and countries that had prided themselves on so far beating the virus are now succumbing to fierce waves of infection driven by new variants

Nepal's long porous border with India has put it at risk of being swamped by infections from its neighbour

The country is now recording 57 times as many cases as a month ago, with 44% of tests now coming back positive, according to the Red Cross

Elsewhere in Asia, some of these worrying spikes are in countries that had until recently managed to avoid the heavy levels of infection seen elsewhere

In Laos, last week, cases jumped more than 200-fold in a month, while Thailand's caseload has more than doubled in that time

Cambodia had also managed to record one of the world's smallest caseloads, until it climbed from about 500 in late February to more than 16,000 now

With hospitals running out of beds, authorities have had to transform schools and wedding party halls into Covid treatment centres

Even Vietnam, which has among the lowest number of infections in Southeast Asia, is imposing curbs on public gatherings after reporting a 131% jump in April over the prior month

America and Europe may be viewing a return to normality driven by successful vaccine programmes, but such outbreaks are predicted to continue in developing countries, even as others put the pandemic behind them

@benfarmerDT reports
telegraph.co.uk/global-health/…