Amidst the global dominance of the Omicron variant, Delta remains the only other named COVID-19 variant with significant reported circulation
Geneva: Globally, during the week of February 28 through March 6, 2022, the number of new COVID-19 cases and deaths has continued to decline by 5% and 8% respectively, as compared to the previous week, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated today.
Across the six WHO regions, over 10 million new cases and over 52 000 new deaths were reported. As of March 6, 2022, over 433 million confirmed cases and over 5.9 million deaths have been reported globally.
At the regional level, while the Western Pacific Region of WHO continued to report an increase (+46%) in the number of new weekly cases, all other regions reported decreases. The number of new weekly deaths increased in the Western Pacific (+29%) and the Eastern Mediterranean (+2%) Regions, while decreases were reported by the African Region (-39%), Europe Region (-15%), the Region of the Americas (-9%) and South-East Asia Region (-3%).
WHO said these trends should be interpreted with caution as several countries are progressively adopting targeted testing strategies, resulting in lower overall numbers of tests performed and consequently of cases detected.
The highest numbers of new cases were reported from South Korea (1 461 431 new cases; +42%), Germany (1 108 231 new cases; -1%), Viet Nam (1 013 343 new cases; +112%), the Russian Federation (650 540 new cases; -29%), and Japan (452 763 new cases; +4%).
The highest number of new deaths were reported from the United States of America (10 579 new deaths; -9%), Russian Federation (5354 new deaths; -1%), Brazil (3865 new deaths; -11%), Indonesia (2099 new deaths, +23%), and Japan (1519 new deaths; -7%).
The current global epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 is characterized by the global dominance of the Omicron variant. Delta remains the only other named variant with significant reported circulation.
Among Omicron descendent lineages reported within the last 30 days, BA.1.1 is the predominant sub-variant, accounting for 187 058 sequences (41%); BA.2 accounts for 156 014 sequences (34.2%); BA.1 accounts for 112 655 sequences (24.7%); and BA.3 accounts for 101 sequences (<1%).
Four studies of Vaccine Effectiveness (VE) for the Omicron variant show a lower protection of the primary series COVID-19 vaccines for all outcomes (severe disease, symptomatic disease, and infection) than has been observed for other VOCs. Nevertheless, VE estimates against the Omicron variant remain highest against severe disease, and lower for symptomatic disease and infection outcomes. Booster doses of vaccine appear to substantially improve VE for all outcomes for all products for which data are available. However, due to short follow-up time in studies available to date, additional data are needed to characterize the duration of VE following a booster dose, WHO stated.
– global bihari bureau
