COVID-19 variants prolong Africa's pandemic wave: WHO
The downward trend of COVID-19 pandemic in Africa is affected by the impact of transmissible variants, especially the Delta variant, warned Thursday the World Health Organization (WHO).
GENEVA, April 15: The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide has surpassed 500 million, according to the latest data from the World Health Organization (WHO).
Globally, as of 8:36 p.m. CEST (1836 GMT) on Thursday, there have been 500,186,525 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 6,190,349 deaths, reported to WHO, according to the WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard.
The United States has the highest cumulative number of confirmed cases and deaths, with more than 79.71 million cases and 979,321 deaths -- both accounting for nearly 16 percent of the world's total.
The United States is followed by India and Brazil, which have recorded cases exceeding 43 million and 30 million respectively, as well as 521,737 and 661,493 deaths.
In terms of WHO regional offices, Europe and the Americas have so far reported more than 209 million and 151 million confirmed cases, as well as 1,964,786 and 2,711,779 deaths, respectively. The two regions combined account for over 72 percent of the world's total in confirmed cases and over 75 percent of deaths.
As the weekly numbers of new COVID-19 cases and deaths have continued to decline according to the WHO statistics, the agency said on Wednesday that the pandemic remains a public health emergency of international concern, advising countries to be prepared to scale up COVID-19 response rapidly.
GENEVA, Nov. 13: Europe reported almost two million new COVID-19 infections last week, the largest weekly case count in the region since the start of the pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) said here on Friday.
There were also almost 27,000 coronavirus-related deaths in Europe, more than half of all COVID-19 deaths in the world last week, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press briefing.
He said that COVID-19 cases have been surging not only in countries with lower vaccination rates in Eastern Europe, but also in countries with some of the world's highest vaccination rates in Western Europe.
According to the WHO's weekly report on COVID-19, during the week of Nov. 1-7, the WHO European Region reported 1,949,419 new cases, a seven percent week-on-week increase, while other regions reported declines or stable trends. Europe's 26,726 new deaths represented a ten percent weekly jump, while other regions showed decreasing trends.
Of the European region's 61 countries, 26 reported increases of ten percent or more in the number of new cases in the past week, with the highest numbers coming from Russia, the United Kingdom and Turkey.
"Some European countries are now reintroducing restrictions to curb transmission and take the pressure off their health systems," Tedros said.
"We continue to recommend the tailored and proportionate use of testing, masks, physical distancing, measures to prevent crowding, improved ventilation, and more. And get vaccinated when it's your turn. Every country must constantly assess its situation and adjust its approach accordingly," he said.
Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO's Health Emergencies Program, has recently noted that the surge in cases in Europe was occurring as temperatures were dropping and people were moving back inside with the perception that the pandemic was nearing the end. Meanwhile, some exhausted health workers were leaving the profession and some hospitals across Europe were forced to shut down their intensive care units and critical care services.
What is happening in Europe despite the availability of vaccines is "a warning shot for the world," Ryan said. "We all have to double down and recommit ourselves to doing everything we can to be the last person in the chain of transmission."
"I think every country now needs to look at its epidemiology, look at protecting its health workforce or its health system and ensure that it can get through the next few months without systems going into collapse again."
A new report from the World Health Organization (WHO) points to a global failure to provide people with the mental health services they need during the COVID-19 pandemic.
GENEVA, September 27: The World Health Organization (WHO) is looking to revive an investigation into the origins of the COVID-19, a US media report said.
The world health body is assembling a team of 20 scientists to hunt for new evidence, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported. According to the WSJ report, the new probe comes following an initial WHO inquiry found that that the data provided by Chinese scientists was insufficient to answer key questions about the virus' origin.
The report stated that the new team of scientists, which includes specialists in laboratory safety and biosecurity and experts in geneticists, may be charged with examining whether the novel virus emerged from a lab, as well as broader inquiries into future virus risks and the links with human behaviour.
WHO believes that the new initiative will help accelerate a probe that risks running out of time, and blood samples from early virus victims become unusable.
Earlier in August, the US had released a report tracing the origins of the COVID-19 virus. While rejecting the report, Beijing had lodged solemn representations with Washington terming the report as "completely political, and having no scientificity and credibility."
In a strongly-worded statement, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu had said the US should "stop poisoning" the international cooperation on virus tracing and return to the correct path of scientific origins tracing and cooperation in the fight against the pandemic.
The declassified summary of a report stated that the US Intelligence Community (IC) assesses that the origins of the novel coronavirus disease may never be definitively identified without additional information.
According to the report, the US intelligence community is still divided about which of the two theories -- that the virus came from a lab leak or that it jumped from animal to human, naturally. There is consensus among the intelligence agencies that the two prevailing theories are plausible, the report said.
A WHO-led team of scientists that travelled to China in early 2021 to investigate the origins of the virus struggled to get a clear picture of what research China was conducting beforehand, faced constraints during its visit, and had little power to conduct thorough and impartial research.
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