Global COVID-19 death toll up 6% in past week, says WHO

GENEVA. KAZINFORM - More than 93,000 people died of COVID-19 in the past week, which is 6% more than during the previous seven-day period, the World Health Organization said in its COVID-19 Weekly Epidemiological Update published in Geneva early on Wednesday, TASS reports.

«For the second successive week, the number of COVID-19 cases globally remains at the highest levels since the beginning of the pandemic with over 5.7 million new weekly cases, following nine consecutive weeks of increases. New deaths continue to increase for the seventh consecutive week, with over 93 000 deaths,» the report says.

On April 26 - May 2, the global organization was informed about 5,705,981 new cases all over the world, and 93,523 COVID-related deaths. As of May 2, 151,812,556 cases of the infection and 3,186,817 COVID-related fatalities were reported worldwide.

The most noticeable growth in cases (up 19%) was registered in Southeast Asia, which, according to the WHO classification also includes India. Cases declined by 22% in Europe, by 15% in Africa, by 5% in North and South America.

Mortality spiked in Southeast Asia (up 48%), but declined in Africa (down 13%), Europe (down 12%) and Western Pacific (down 3%).

In the past seven days, over 1.16 million people contracted the infection in Europe, over 22,000 patients died. The number of cases in North and South America increased by over 1.3 million in the reported period, while fatalities grew by 36,000. In Southeast Asia, doctors registered over 2.7 million new cases of the novel coronavirus, over 25,000 patients died.

India accounts for the majority of cases registered on April 26 - May 2 (2.59 million new cases), followed by Brazil (over 421 new cases), the United States (over 346,000), Turkey (over 257,000), France (over 163,000), Argentina (over 152,000), Iran (over 139,000), Germany (over 129,000), Colombia (over 119,000), Italy (over 86,000), Russia (over 60,000), Ukraine (over 57,000), the Philippines (over 57,000) and Canada (over 54,000).

Also, the WHO reported that VOC 202012/01, a more contagious strain of the novel coronavirus initially detected in the United Kingdom, was found in three more countries since April 27, bringing their overall number to 142.

The number of countries that reported on their territory the 501Y.V2 strain of novel coronavirus, first discovered in South Africa, has increased to 97. The P.1 variant (first identified in Brazil and Japan) is now circulating in 56 states.