Geneva: All efforts to contain the spread of pandemic in India needs to be urgently revisited as the latest World Health Organisation (WHO) figures today showed 25, 97, 285 new COVID-19 cases (188.2 new cases per 100 000) – a 20 per cent increase in new Coronavirus cases as compared to last week, in the country, suffering badly from the scourge.
Ever since the beginning of the pandemic, as the number of COVID-19 cases globally remains at the highest levels for the second successive week ending May 2, 2021, with over 5.7 million new weekly cases, following nine consecutive weeks of increases, India accounted for 46% of global cases and 25% of global deaths reported in the past week.
New deaths have continued to increase for the seventh consecutive week, with over 93 000 deaths globally in the past week, and India has taken the lead with 23231 new deaths (1.7 new deaths per 100 000; a 53% increase) during this period – Much ahead of Brazil (17 365 new deaths; 8.2 new deaths per 100 000; a 2% decrease), the United States of America (4728 new deaths; 1.4 new deaths per 100 000; a 5% decrease), and Colombia (3274 new deaths; 6.4 new deaths per 100 000; a 14% increase).
“More cases of COVID-19 have been reported globally in the past two weeks than during the first six months of the pandemic. India and Brazil account for more than half of last week’s cases,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus pointed out.
Incidentally, the case incidence in the regions of Europe, Eastern Mediterranean, Africa and the Americas last week had decreased, while rates in the Western Pacific Region were comparable to the previous week. The number of deaths too had decreased in Europe, Africa and the Western Pacific region, while slight increases were reported in the Americas and Eastern Mediterranean regions of the World Health Organisation (WHO).
However, the South-East Asia Region of WHO continued to report marked increases in both case and death incidences, and India accounted for over 90% of both cases and deaths in the region.
The WHO further said today that as of May 2, 2021, there had been over 151 million confirmed COVID-19 cases reported to WHO worldwide. “However, this does not fully represent the true extent of infection with the SARS-COV-2 virus. This is because current surveillance strategies and testing capacities often do not typically include infected individuals who were asymptomatic, often miss mildly symptomatic cases, those who do not have access to testing,” it said.
– global bihari bureau
