Geneva: Globally, the number of new COVID-19 cases remained similar during the week of January 24 to 30, 2022, to that reported during the previous week, while the number of new deaths increased by 9%, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated here today.
India, despite showing a 12% decrease in new COVID cases last week, registered 40% increase in deaths due to the pandemic.
The current global epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 is characterized by the continued rapid global spread of the Omicron variant. All other variants, including Variants Of Concern [VOCs] Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta, and Variants Of Interest [VOIs] Lambda and Mu, continue to decline in all six WHO regions.
The Omicron variant
Since the designation of B.1.1.529 as a VOC on November 26, 2021, several Omicron lineages have been identified. These include Pango lineages BA.1, BA.1.1, BA.2 and BA.3, which are all being monitored by WHO under the umbrella of ‘Omicron’. The common origin of these lineages has not yet been elucidated and it is not clear to date how and where the Omicron parental variant or the descendent lineages originated and further evolved.
The Omicron variant-defining constellation of mutations fully overlaps with Pango lineage BA.1 (including lineage BA.1.1), and this accounts for 96.4% of sequences submitted to GISAID as of January 31, 2022.
“Most evidence we have to date about Omicron is therefore based on this Pango lineage. A relative increase in the BA.2 variant, which differs from BA.1 in some of the mutations, including in the spike protein, has been observed in multiple countries…Investigations into the characteristics of BA.2, including transmissibility, immune escape properties and virulence, should be prioritized independently (and comparatively) to BA.1,” WHO stated.
At the country level, the highest numbers of new COVID-19 cases were reported from the United States of America (3 279 226 new cases; a 34% decrease), France (2 357 129 new cases; similar to the previous week’s figures), India (1 855 258 new cases; a 12% decrease), Brazil (1 283 024 new cases; a 56% increase), and Germany (1 055 768 new cases; a 48% increase). The highest number of new deaths were reported from the United States of America (13 558 new deaths; a 5% decrease), India (4682 new deaths; a 40% increase), the Russian Federation (4616 new deaths; similar to the previous week), Brazil (3321 new deaths; an 88% increase) and Italy (2618 new deaths; a 7% increase).
Across the six WHO regions, over 22 million new cases and over 59 000 new deaths were reported. As of January 30, 2022, over 370 million confirmed cases and over 5.6 million deaths have been reported globally
At the Regional level, the number of new weekly deaths continued to increase in WHO’s South-East Asia Region (41%), Eastern Mediterranean Region (32%) and the Region of the Americas (16%), while the African Region reported a decrease of 7%. The incidence of deaths remained similar to the previous week in the European and the Western Pacific regions
Increases in the number of new cases were reported by the Western Pacific (37%) the Eastern Mediterranean (24%) and the European (7%) regions, while a decrease was reported by the Region of the Americas (20%) and the South-East Asia Region (8%). The number of new cases reported in the African Region remained similar to the previous week.
– global bihari bureau
