COVID-19 infections have been on the increase globally for more than a month now, with over four million cases confirmed in the past week alone, the World Health Organisation has said.
WHO in its latest update on Wednesday, attributed the uptick to “substantial” caseload increases of 33 per cent in the Western Pacific and 37 per cent in the Eastern Mediterranean – where coronavirus fatalities also rose 48 and 31 per cent, respectively.
The number of deaths in the four remaining WHO regions of Africa, Americas, Europe and South-East Asia was in keeping with previous weeks, apart from the Americas, which dropped 29 per cent.
Africa and Europe witnessed a two per cent decrease in COVID-19 deaths, while South-East Asia registered a three per cent increase, according to WHO’s COVID-19 Weekly Epidemiological Update.
Overall, the total number of reported cases is around 197 million and with 4.2 million deaths worldwide.
While Alpha variant infections have been reported in 182 countries, the Delta variant has been confirmed in three new countries, infecting a total of 135 nations.
By region, WHO said that Africa – now in the grip of its third coronavirus wave – had reported similar numbers of weekly cases and deaths as the previous seven-day period, with just over 182,000 new cases and more than 4,800 new deaths.
