GENEVA — The COVID-19 pandemic remains "fragile" across the European region, the World Health Organization said on Thursday, as cases increase in Central Europe, the Balkans, and the Caucasus.

"We cannot say we’re in a stable situation across the whole region at the moment," said Dr. Catherine Smallwood with the WHO's Health Emergencies Programme at a press conference.

The WHO's European region, which includes some Asian countries, accounts for 40 percent of global cases, Dr. Hans Kluge, the WHO's regional director for Europe said, warning that rising cases in Central and Southern Europe were "of grave concern".

Georgia, Serbia, Luxembourg, and Croatia have the region's highest cumulative number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 in the past two weeks.

The WHO's European region, which includes some Asian countries, accounts for 40% of global cases, Dr. Hans Kluge, the WHO's regional director for Europe said, warning that rising cases in Central and Southern Europe were "of grave concern".

Georgia, Serbia, Luxembourg, and Croatia have the region's highest cumulative number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 in the past two weeks.

Serbia's incidence rate is up 121 percent in this two-week period of time, with a total of 191,356 confirmed cases. Serbia has been recording around 7,000 cases a day of the virus.

Recently, the two most senior Serbian religious leaders died of coronavirus, with many mourners attending the funerals, fuelling concerns that lax restrictions in the religious community would aggravate the spread of the virus.

Dr. Kluge emphasized that there needed to be restrictions on large gatherings, calling out "religious gatherings like mass funerals" at a press conference.

Croatia meanwhile has recorded around 139,000 COVID-19 cases and is recording around 3,000 new positive cases a day for a population of around four million people.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenković recently tested positive for the virus. The country's health minister had also tested positive.

Plenković had announced new restrictions including closing bars and restaurants and limiting gatherings from the end of November, measures that will stay in place until at least Dec. 21.

Other countries in the Balkans and in the Caucasus region are also experiencing increases in cases, Dr Smallwood said during WHO's European region press conference.

Western European countries on the other hand are seeing improvements with hospitalizations falling in countries that brought in tough measures to fight back the virus, with some planning to exit lockdowns ahead of the holiday season.

But experts at WHO warned that COVID "hasn’t gone away" and "won’t go away".

"Over the Christmas and winter holiday periods there’s a potential, a very real potential of it becoming even more of a problem as people try to gather," said Dr. Smallwood at the briefing.

There have been more than 90 million cases of COVID-19 and over 427,000 deaths reported in the WHO's European Region.

"The virus still has the potential to do enormous damage," Dr. Kluge said, but said hailed the promising results from candidate vaccines saying their "reward" could be potentially "game-changing". — Courtesy Euro news