Geneva: Driven by BA.4 and BA.5 in many places, COVID-19 cases are on the rise in 110 countries, causing overall global cases to increase by 20% and deaths have risen in three of the six WHO regions even as the global figure remains relatively stable, the World Health Organization stated today.
At the country level, the highest numbers of new weekly cases were reported from the United States of America (701 855 new cases; +5%), Germany (504 655 new cases; +23%), Brazil (349 791 new cases; +37%), Italy (340 012 new cases; +61%), and China (333 926 new cases; -18%).
The highest numbers of new weekly deaths were reported from the United States of America (1997 new deaths; -2%), Brazil (1313 new deaths; +37%), China (925 new deaths; -11%), the Russian Federation (429 new deaths; -3%), and Italy (355 new deaths; +5%).
After the declining trend in new cases observed since mid-January 2022, the WHO’s South-East Asia Region reported increases over the last four weeks, with over 131 000 new cases reported, a 32% increase as compared to the previous week. Eight of ten countries (80%) for which data are available showed increases in the number of new cases of 20% or greater, with some of the greatest proportional increases observed in Bangladesh (8846 vs 2212 new cases; +300%), the Maldives (1043 vs 528 new cases; +98%) and Sri Lanka (83 vs 47 new cases; +77%).
The highest numbers of new cases were reported from India (93 281 new cases; 6.8 new cases per 100 000; +25%), Thailand (15 111 new cases; 21.6 new cases per 100 000; +7%), and Indonesia (12 376 new cases; 4.5 new cases per 100 000; +63%).
The number of new weekly deaths in the Region increased by 15% as compared to the previous week, with over 300 new deaths reported. The highest numbers of new deaths were reported from India (144 new deaths; <1 new death per 100 000; +53%), Thailand (125 new deaths; <1 new death per 100 000; -6%), and Indonesia (30 new deaths; <1 new death per 100 000; -32%).
WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that the ability to track the virus is under threat as reporting and genomic sequences are declining meaning it is becoming harder to track Omicron and analyse future emerging variants.
“This pandemic is changing but it’s not over. We have made progress but it’s not over,” he declared.
Dr Ghebreyesus highlighted that while it was almost the mid-point of the year, which is the point at which WHO had called on all countries to vaccinate at least 70% of their population, only 58 countries hit the 70 per cent target. He noted that the average rate of vaccination in low-income countries was just 13 per cent.
WHO said in the past 18 months, more than 12 billion vaccines were distributed around the world, and 75 per cent of the world’s health workers and over-60s were now vaccinated. It referred to the Lancet which estimates that 20 million lives are saved because of vaccines.
However, on the flip side, hundreds of millions of people, including tens of millions of health workers and older people in lower-income countries remain unvaccinated, which means they are more vulnerable to future waves of the virus.
“While the hoarding of vaccines by rich and manufacturing countries was the major barrier to access last year, increasingly political commitment to getting vaccines out to people – and challenges of disinformation – have been hurdles at the national level in 2022,” Dr Gebreyesus said. He said that if there was enough political will domestically, support to ensure rollouts to communities and disinformation tackled, high vaccination rates were entirely achievable. “I was just in Rwanda where second dose vaccination rates are now above 65% and still rising. And others like Nepal and Cambodia have shown it’s possible,” he said.
– global bihari bureau
