‘Covid cases on rise in 110 nations, driven by 2 Omicron sub-variants’

UNITED NATIONS/ GENEVA: The COVID-19 pandemic is changing but it is not over, head of the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, cautioning that the cases are on the rise in 110 countries and are being driven mainly by two fast-spreading Omicron sub-variants.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this week that the fast-spreading Omicron sub-variants BA.4 and BA.5 together are estimated to make up half of the Coronavirus cases in the United States.

As of June 25, BA.5 made up 36.6 per cent of the total Coronavirus cases in the US while BA.4 accounted for 15.7 per cent, together accounting for about 52 per cent of new cases in the US.

"On COVID-19, driven by BA.4 and BA.5 in many places, cases are on the rise in 110 countries, causing overall global cases to increase by 20 per cent and deaths have risen in three of the six WHO regions even as the global figure remains relatively stable, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

He said the pandemic is changing but it's not over. We have made progress but it's not over. Ghebreyesus said the ability to track the virus is under threat" as reporting and genomic sequences are declining, making it harder to track Omicron and analyse future emerging variants.

The WHO chief also voiced concern over the slow pace of vaccination in lower-income countries, making the at-risk population in those areas more vulnerable to future waves of the virus.

We're close to the mid-point of the year, which is the point at which WHO had called on all countries to vaccinate at least 70% of their population, he said, adding that in the past 18 months, more than 12 billion vaccines have been distributed around the world and 75 per cent of the world's health workers and over-60s are now vaccinated.

The Lancet estimates that 20 million lives have been saved because of vaccines.