The world reported 3.8 million cases of covid in the last week, the lowest figure since the first cases of the omicron variant were detected in mid-Novembercurrently the dominant one on the planet, according to data presented this Wednesday by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The figure represents a reduction of 17% with respect to the infections registered in the previous week (April 18-24), according to the WHO, which insists in its weekly epidemiological report that due to the reduction in tests in many countries, this fall must be interpreted with caution.
(Also read: Ukraine: doctors warn of disorders in war refugees)
It is, in any case, the sixth consecutive week of global declines, far from the records of the end of January, when 23 million infections were exceeded in the world per week.
Europe remained the region with the most infections in the seven days studied (1.8 million, a decrease of 22% compared to the previous week), followed by East Asia (1.1 million, 20% less) and America (616,000, an increase of 13%).
From April 25 to May 1, on the other hand, 15,700 deaths were recorded, a reduction of 3% compared to the previous week, and confirming a downward trend that began already in early February.
(You may be interested: In Venezuela, only two operating rooms work for each public hospital)
The weekly death toll is the lowest since the end of March 2020.
Europe reported 6,400 deaths from covid last week, a decrease of 16%, while in America 4,200 were registered, a figure similar to the previous weekly period, and in South Asia 2,600, a rise of 69% that is explained in part due to the accounting in India of deaths from previous months.
In this week’s report, the WHO has stopped reporting the percentage of cases analyzed in the laboratory that belong to variants of the coronavirus other than the dominant one (delta, alpha, etc), noting that “virtually all the reported sequences are omicron”.
In the accumulated since the beginning of the health crisis more than two years ago, 511 million cases of covid have been registered on the planet, of which 6.2 million were fatal, which constitutes the worst pandemic since the 1918 flu -twenty.
(Also: What is at stake if the Court overturns the right to abortion in the United States)
‘The pandemic is not over’: WHO
However, despite these figures, the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, pointed out this Wednesday that the recent uptick in covid cases in America and South Africa, a country where two new sublineages of the omicron variant, “are a sign that the pandemic is not over yet”.
The BA.4 and BA.5 sublineages, identified by the same laboratory that detected the omicron variant in late 2021, “appear to be behind the increase in cases in South Africa,” Tedros warned in his weekly press conference.
The head of the WHO pointed out that for now it is premature to link BA.4 and BA.5 to more or less mild cases of the disease, although he indicated that at the moment the vaccines seem to be effective in protecting the organism from serious forms of covid.
(Keep reading: USA: Oklahoma Governor Enacts Restrictive Abortion Law)
Vaccination remains the best way to protect the population
“Vaccination is still the best way to protect the population, along with health and social measures that have proven their effectiveness,” said the Ethiopian expert.
Tedros stressed that the global goal must continue to be to vaccinate 70% of the population in all countries of the world against covid (the global average is over 65%, although the rates are very different between developed and developing economies).
“Access to vaccines has improved, but it is still limited by problems such as lack of political commitment, financial limitations or doubts spread by disinformation campaigns,” he said.
Tedros added that carrying out tests is still vital to face the pandemic because with them it has been possible to identify new sublineages, despite the fact that in many countries the budget for these massive analyzes has been greatly reduced.
“In many countries we essentially cannot see how the virus is evolving and we do not know what will happen in the future,” warned the director general, who will travel to Poland this Thursday to participate in an international donor conference with the aim of assisting Ukraine. .
EFE
More news
Mexico: families train to find their missing and dead
False gynecologist placed ‘Colombian sticks’ as contraceptives
China will maintain its ‘zero covid’ policy despite rejection by the population
#world #registers #fewest #number #covid #cases #arrival #omicron