The COVID-19 pandemic remains “a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC)”, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization (WHO) during a press conference on July 19.
According to him, the new waves of contamination shows that the COVID-19 pandemic “is nowhere near over”.
New outbreaks of the virus
According to WHO data, the number of COVID-19 cases has increased for the fifth consecutive week.
During the week of July 4-10, 2022, more than 5.7 million new cases were reported, a 6% increase over the previous week.
At the same time, the number of new weekly deaths was similar to the previous week, with over 9,800 deaths reported to WHO.
While the WHO believes that this increase is due to the emergence of different variants and the Omicron variant, the organization also blames the lifting of physical and public health distancing measures and the steep reductions in testing, resulting in reduced coverage and quality of surveillance.
Increases in the number of cases
Increases in the number of casesAt the national level, the highest number of new weekly cases was reported by France, with 771,260 new cases, followed by the USA, Italy, Germany and Brazil.
According to a report issued on July 13, 2022, WHO has identified more than 561 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide, including 235 million in Europe, and more than 6.3 million deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.
More than 12.1 billion vaccines have been administered worldwide, according to a WHO count on July 12.
More information:
- What you need to know about monkeypox (unric.org)
- Coronavirus (COVID-19) Engagement Hub | UN in Western Europe (unric.org)