United Nations/Geneva: Be prepared for fresh COVID-19 waves, WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan has warned, amid the introduction of new variants that are more infectious, immune developed and concerns about greater hospitalizations. There is mounting evidence suggesting that ‘Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5’ are infecting people who have been vaccinated.
“We need to be prepared for these #COVID19 waves – each new #type will become more transmissible and immunity developed – more infected numbers will translate into more hospitalizations and disease. There must be a data-driven plan,” Swaminathan tweeted on Thursday.
She was tweeting in response to a Twitter thread by Philip Schelkens, Senior Adviser to the World Bank Group, who said that “we are witnessing a global U-turn in the COVID-19 mortality rate. After months of decline, it has started to rise again, “which didn’t come as a big surprise” given the merits of BA.5, its intuitive approach to infection control and 3/4 of the world’s uptake on vaccination. Not being up-to-date.”
Skelekens said the epidemic is accelerating in high-income countries, and high-middle-income countries are also seeing an uptick in new cases. He said the US, France, Italy, Germany and Japan are “drivers of the global boom” in high-income countries and that Brazil, an upper-middle-income country, is leading the developing world.
“The mortality rate has started to rise a bit,” he said, adding that the US and Brazil are currently the main contributors to the global death toll. WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news conference earlier this week that he is concerned that cases of COVID-19 are rising – putting further pressure on stretched health systems and healthcare workers.
He said that I am also worried about the increasing trend of deaths. The WHO chief said subtypes of micron, such as BA.4 and BA.5, continue to cause waves of cases, hospitalizations and deaths around the world.
Surveillance, including testing and sequencing, is also significantly reduced, making it difficult to assess the effect of variants on transmission, disease characteristics and effectiveness of countermeasures.
The virus is moving freely and countries are not effectively managing the burden of the disease at their capacity, both in terms of hospitalizations for severe cases and the increasing number of people with the COVID-19 condition – Which is often referred to as long-Covid, he said.
The new wave of the virus again demonstrates that COVID-19 is nowhere to be found. As the virus pushes us, we must push back, Ghebreyesus said. Globally, the number of weekly cases increased for the fifth consecutive week, following a declining trend since the last peak in March 2022, the WHO COVID-19 Weekly Epidemiological Update released this week said.
During the week of July 4 to 10, more than 5.7 million new cases were reported, which is 6 percent more than the previous week. The number of new weekly deaths was similar to the figures reported during the previous week, with more than 9,800 deaths reported to the WHO.
As of 10 July, only 553 million confirmed cases and over 6.3 million deaths have been reported globally. At the country level, the highest number of weekly new cases were reported from France (7,71,260 new cases; 6%), the United States (7,22,924 new cases; -6%), Italy (661,984 new cases). cases; 30 percent), Germany (561,136 new cases; -9 percent), and Brazil (396,781 new cases; -3 percent).
The highest number of new weekly deaths were from the US (1987 new deaths; -19 percent), Brazil (1,639 new deaths; 11 percent), China (692 new deaths; -8 percent), Spain (619 new). deaths; 98 percent), and Italy (574 new deaths; 33 percent). The update said the Southeast Asia region has been reporting an increasing trend in cases since early June, with more than 164,000 new cases being reported, a 5 percent increase from the previous week.
Of the 10 countries for which data was available, four saw an increase in the number of new cases of 20 percent or more, with the largest proportionate increase seen in Nepal and Sri Lanka.
The region reported the highest number of new cases from India (120,222 new cases; an increase of 7 percent), Indonesia (17,388 new cases; +29 percent), and Thailand (14,938 new cases; -6 percent).
The number of new weekly deaths in the region increased by 23 percent compared to the previous week, with more than 400 new deaths. India has the highest number of new deaths (229 new deaths; +15%), Thailand (135 new deaths; +25%) and Indonesia (42 new deaths; +31%).