Geneva: Globally, weekly COVID-19 case incidence plateaued this week, with nearly 3.8 million confirmed new cases reported during the week of November 22-28, 2021, similar to the previous week’s figures.
However, new weekly cases increased in three of the six WHO regions. The African, Western Pacific and European Regions reported increases in new weekly cases of 93%, 24% and 7%, respectively, while the Regions of the Americas and South-East Asia reported decreases of 24% and 11%, respectively.
To note, the increase in the African Region was largely due to batch reporting of antigen tests by South Africa last week, therefore the trends should be interpreted with caution, the World Health Organization stated today.
While global weekly deaths decreased by 10% in the past seven days as compared to the previous week, with over 47 500 new deaths reported, an increase in weekly deaths was reported in two of the six regions.
The regions reporting the highest weekly case incidence per 100 000 population continue to be the European Region (285.2 new cases per 100 000 population) and the Region of the Americas (64.5 new cases per 100 000 population). The European Region also reported the highest weekly incidence in deaths of 3.1 per 100 000 population while <1 new death per 100 000 was reported in all other regions.
The highest numbers of new cases were reported from the United States of America (464 800 new cases; a 31% decrease), Germany (406 754 new cases; a 22% increase), the United Kingdom (304 374 new cases; an 8% increase), the Russian Federation (239 215 new cases; an 8% decrease) and France (190 402 new cases; a 62% increase).
In Africa region, 11 of the 49 countries reported an increase of over 10% in the number of new weekly deaths with the highest numbers of new deaths reported from South Africa (219 new deaths; <1 new death per 100 000 population; a 128% increase), Ethiopia (64 new deaths; <1 new death per 100 000; an 8% increase), and Mauritius (50 new deaths; 3.9 new deaths per 100 000; a 52% decrease).
Moreover, in the Region of the Americas, despite having the highest number of deaths in the Region, the United States of America and Brazil saw reductions in the number of new deaths (5003 new deaths; 1.5 new deaths per 100 000; a 52% decrease and 1587 new deaths; <1 new death per 100 000; a 16% decrease, respectively), as compared to the numbers reported in the previous week.
In Europe, the highest numbers of new deaths were reported from the Russian Federation (8660 new deaths; 5.9 new deaths per 100 000; similar to the previous week’s figures); Ukraine (3845 new deaths; 8.8 new deaths per 100 000; a 16% decrease) and Poland (2214 new deaths; 5.8 new deaths per 100 000; a 13% increase).
In WHO’s South East Asia Region,the number of weekly deaths increased by 26% as compared to the previous week, with over 3500 new deaths reported this week. Three countries reported an increase of >10% including Nepal (27 new deaths; <1 new death per 100 000; a 42% increase); India (2892 new deaths; <1 new death per 100 000; a 36% increase) and Sri Lanka (178 new deaths; <1 new death per 100 000; a 35% increase). Thailand reported the second highest number of deaths after India but the number of deaths declined (320 new deaths; <1 new death per 100 000; a 9% decrease) as compared to the previous week.
As of November 28, 2021, over 260 million confirmed cases and nearly 5.2 million deaths werereported globally, the WHO stated.
– global bihari bureau
