The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the coronavirus pandemic continues to rebound around the world for the fifth consecutive week, with a 6% increase in the number of cases recorded.
In its latest epidemiological bulletin, the World Health Agency notes that “at the global level, the number of weekly cases has increased for the fifth consecutive week, after a downward trend since the last peak in March 2022″.
And to clarify that during the week of July 4 to 10, 2022, more than 5.7 million new cases were reported, an increase of 6% compared to the previous week.
Meanwhile, the number of new weekly deaths was similar to the previous week, with more than 9,800 deaths reported to WHO.
While this is a weekly increase of +6% this week, the number of new infections worldwide has jumped 30% in the past two weeks. According to the WHO, this increase is mainly fueled by the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants.
Only the African continent experienced a sharp drop, with -33%
It was against this rising backdrop that the WHO on Tuesday declared the pandemic remains a public health emergency and warned that reduced surveillance, including testing and sequencing, makes it difficult to assess the impact of new variants.
The Covid-19 pandemic is “far from over”, the Director of the UN World Health Agency, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Tuesday July 12 during a press conference in Geneva. “As the virus breaks through, we must push it back,” warned Dr Tedros.
At the regional level, the number of new weekly cases increased sharply in the Western Pacific Region (+28%) and in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (+25%). Southeast Asia reported an increase of +5%. For Europe, new infections remained similar to the figures of the previous week (+4%).
But according to the WHO, only the African continent has experienced a sharp drop, with -33% of new contaminations. At the same time, the Region of the Americas reports 1.5 million new cases, or -1%. But according to the WHO, all these trends should be “interpreted with caution, as several countries have gradually changed their testing strategies for Covid-19, which has led to a drop in the total number of tests carried out and, consequently, the number of detected cases”.
France has the highest number of new cases
Nationally, the highest number of new weekly cases was reported by France (771,260 new cases; 6%). This is followed by the United States of America (722,924 new cases; -6%), Italy (661,984 new cases; 30%), Germany (561,136 new cases; -9%) and Brazil (396,781 new cases, -3%).
Regarding the number of weekly deaths, WHO reports a considerable increase in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (+78%), followed by South-East Asia (+23%). At the same time, deaths decreased in Africa (-17%) and the Western Pacific (-10%). The Region of the Americas (-4%) and the European Region (0%) both recorded similar figures compared to the previous week.
The highest number of new weekly deaths was reported by the United States of America (1987 new deaths, -19%). This is followed by Brazil (1,639 new deaths, 11%), China (692 new deaths, -8%), Spain (619 new deaths, 98%) and Italy (574 new deaths, 33%).
According to a report established on July 13, 2022, the WHO has identified more than 555.4 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the world, including 233.5 million in Europe, for more than 6.3 million deaths since the start of the pandemic. More than 12.1 billion vaccines have been administered worldwide, according to a count established on July 12 by the WHO.
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