More Europeans have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 than have been proved to be infected with the disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Thursday.

It has been 462 days since the first infections were reported in the European region, WHO Europe Regional Director Hans Kluge said.

Since then, he said, the virus has been detected in 5.5% of the total European population, while 7% have been fully vaccinated.

For the first time in two months, Europe registered a significant drop in new infections last week, Kluge said, while warning that caseloads still remained extremely high.

The WHO counts a total of more than 50 countries in the European region, including places like Turkey, Russia and Ukraine.

In these countries, there have been a total of 51.3 million infections so far, including nearly 1.37 million in the past seven days.

Experts say the true number of infections is likely far higher than the official count.

According to Kluge, about 215 million doses of vaccine have been administered in the region so far. An estimated 16% of the population has received at least one dose.

Earlier this week, the number of COVID-19 jabs administered worldwide – both first and second – reached 1 billion.