WHO Says COVID-19 Cases Drop Nine Percent Globally Last Week, Two Omicron Subvariants Trigger New Wave Of Infections

JAKARTA - The World Health Organization (WHO) said the world's overall COVID-19 cases fell by nine percent last week, while the death toll was steady, in a weekly assessment.

The WHO said there were 6.5 million cases reported last week, with more than 14.000 deaths. He further explained, the number of new cases fell by 35 percent in Europe, but increased by about 20 percent in the Western Pacific and 5 percent in Africa.

As for the death rate, it rose about 44 percent in the Western Pacific and 26 percent in the Middle East. In Europe, the death toll fell by about a quarter.

The WHO has previously warned that recent COVID-19 surveillance has been severely disrupted by countries reducing testing, reporting, and other coronavirus warning systems.

The agency said the COVID-19 figures were likely to be significantly underestimated, which could make it more difficult to spot a worrying new variant.

In its report, WHO also revealed that two Omicron subvariants, namely the BA.4 subvariance and the BA.5 subvariance, were the drivers of the latest wave of infections worldwide.

It said the BA.5 subvariant accounts for about 64 percent to 70 percent of the sequences shared with the world's largest public virus database.

Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, said the likelihood of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations would continue to fall further in the next few weeks.

Other experts warned that measures to prevent COVID-19 still had to be taken, saying the health system was still under pressure.

"We should expect that the incidence of long-term COVID from this wave will be lower than that of the first and second waves," said James Naismith, director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute at the University of Oxford.

James also asked people to stay vaccinated even when COVID-19 protocols were abandoned, citing the danger of reinfection.

The highest number of new cases was reported in Japan, the US, South Korea, Germany and Italy. Most deaths were reported in the US, Brazil, Italy, Japan and Australia.