The COVID-19 pandemic is still raging across Europe, where, according to the Red Cross, the daily death rate from the coronavirus averages 2,000, with more than 1 million people infected each week.
"Disinformation about vaccines' side effects and potential risks, coupled with the introduction of 'vaccine passes', is sparking anger and violence, which have led to concerning incidents against medical services, media and the general public in countries including Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Poland, Slovenia and France," the IFRC said in a statement.
The IFRC considers the uneven distribution of vaccines among countries with different income levels another problem, saying that "there is still a deadly gap in the distribution and uptake of vaccines in the region: almost 70 per cent of people in high-income countries have received at least one dose, whereas in the poorest ones barely 20 per cent have been partially vaccinated."
"If we don't step up collective efforts to strengthen community trust and make vaccines widely available, it will be too late," Birgitte Bischoff Ebbesen, IFRC’s Regional Director for Europe, said.
The pandemic has gripped the world since early 2020. The first reports of an outbreak in Wuhan, China, emerged in December 2019. In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a pandemic. In August, in response to the introduction of new restrictive measures, a wave of protests spread across Europe.