copenhagen progress against the coronavirus pandemic remains fragile and international travel should be avoided the world health organizations europe director warned on thursday but stressed that authorised vaccines do work against variants of concernright now in the face of a continued threat and new uncertainty we need to continue to exercise caution and rethink or avoid international travel hans kluge said adding that pockets of increasing transmission on the continent could quickly spreadthe socalled indian variant which may be more transmissible has now been identified in at least 26 of the 53 countries in the who europe region kluge said during his weekly press conferencebut he said that authorised vaccines are effective against the new strainall covid19 virus variants that have emerged so far do respond to the available approved vaccines kluge said adding that all covid19 variants can be controlled with the same public health and social measures used until nowso far only 23 percent of people in the region have received a vaccine dose with just 11 percent having had both doses kluge said as he warned citizens to continue to exercise cautionvaccines may be a light at the end of the tunnel but we cannot be blinded by that light he said