Geneva: Despite a regional decrease in deaths in World Health Organization designated South-East Asia Region, three countries in the region reported increases of over 15% this week: Timor-Leste (32%), Sri Lanka (19%) and India (10%). The highest numbers of new cases in the region too were reported from India (270 796 new cases; 19.6 new cases per 100 000; a 17% increase), last week (August 23-29, 2021).
Globally, with just under 4.4 million new cases reported last week, the number of new cases reported remained similar to the previous week after increasing for nearly two months (since mid-June, 2021).
In the past week all regions reported either a decline (Africa, Americas) or a similar trend (Europe, South-East Asia, Eastern Mediterranean) in new cases, except for the Western Pacific Region which reported a 7% increase as compared to previous week.
The Western Pacific Region reported the highest proportionate increase in new deaths this week, an increase driven by substantial increases in case incidence in French Polynesia (86%), Japan (53%) and Viet Nam (36%). The highest numbers of new cases were reported from Japan (156 931 new cases; 124.1 new cases per 100 000; a 5% increase), Malaysia (150 224 new cases; 464.1 new cases per 100 000; similar to the previous week), and the Philippines (111 904 new cases; 102.1 new cases per 100 000; a 16% increase).
Despite reporting the largest proportional decrease (9%) in cases this week, the Region of the Americas reported over 1.4 million new cases, the largest number of cases reported globally; the United States of America continued to report the largest number of cases in the Region accounting for 63% of all new cases reported this week. Notable increases in cases were also observed in Canada (28% increase) and Guatemala (23% increase) this week.
While the number of new cases reported in the Eastern Mediterranean Region this week remained similar to the previous week with over 443 000 new cases reported, the Region reported over 7800 new deaths, a 9% increase compared to the previous week. This increasing trend in mortality can be attributed to the number of deaths increasing in 9 of the 22 countries (41%) in the region this week, the WHO stated today.
The number of deaths reported globally this week were also similar to last week, with just over 67 000 new deaths reported. The Eastern Mediterranean and Western Pacific Regions reported an increase in the number of weekly deaths, 9% and 16% respectively, while the South-East Asia Region reported the largest decrease (20%).
The cumulative number of cases reported globally is now nearly 216 million and the cumulative number of deaths is just under 4.5 million.
The highest numbers of new deaths were reported from the United States of America (7323 new deaths; 2.2 new deaths per 100 000; a 9% increase), Russia (5593 new deaths; 3.8 new deaths per 100 000; similar to the previous week), Indonesia (5551 new deaths; 2.0 new deaths per 100 000; a 37% decrease), Mexico (5070 new deaths; 3.9 new deaths per 100 000; a 9% increase), Brazil (4815 new deaths; 2.3 new deaths per 100 000; a 15% decrease), Iran (4547 new deaths; 5.4 new deaths per 100 000; a 10% increase), India (3463 new deaths; <1new death per 100 000; a 10% increase), and Viet Nam (2865 new deaths; 2.9 new deaths per 100 000; a 36% increase).
– global bihari bureau
