The number of new coronavirus infections rose 18% last week to 4.1 million globally, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The UN health agency wrote in its latest weekly pandemic report that the death toll in the world remained similar to last week, at around 8,500. The number of deaths associated with Covid has increased in three regions: the Middle East, Southeast Asia and the Americas.
And the largest weekly increase in cases, by 47%, took place in the Middle East. Infections increased by 32% in Europe and Southeast Asia and by 14% in the Americas, the report said. WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the number of cases had risen in 110 countries, largely due to new variants of Omicron, BA. 4 and BA. 5.
“The pandemic has changed, but it has not ended,” he said in a press release.
Dr. Tedros also said that tracking the genetic evolution of Covid-19 is “endangered” as countries have relaxed surveillance and genetic sequencing efforts, warning that it will be more difficult to identify potentially dangerous new variants.
He called on countries to immunize their most vulnerable populations, including health workers and people over 60, saying hundreds of millions are unvaccinated and at risk of serious illness and death.
Tedros said that 1.2 billion vaccines have been administered worldwide, but the immunization rate in poor countries is on average only 13%: “If rich countries vaccinate six-month-olds and plan new recalls, it is incomprehensible to think that low-income countries should not vaccinate the most vulnerable.”
According to data from Oxfam and the People’s Vaccines Alliance, less than half of the 2.1 billion vaccines promised to poor countries by the G7 have been delivered.