WHO: COVID-19 cases rise for the 5th week, deaths stable

GENEVA: The number of new Coronavirus cases reported worldwide rose for the fifth week in a row while the number of deaths remained relatively stable, the World Health Organisation reported Thursday.

In the UN health agency's weekly review of the COVID19

pandemic, WHO said there were 5.7 million new infections confirmed last week, marking a 6% increase. There were 9.800 deaths, roughly similar to the previous week's figure.

Earlier this week, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the pandemic still qualifies as a global emergency and he was concerned about the recent spike.

The virus is running freely, and countries are not effectively managing the disease burden, he said during a Tuesday press briefing. New waves of the virus demonstrate again that

COVID-19 is nowhere near over. In the last two weeks, cases of COVID-19 reported to WHO surged 30%, driven largely by the hugely infectious Omicron relatives, BA.4 and BA.5. The two Omicron subvariants have shown a worrisome ability to re-infect people previously vaccinated or who have recovered from COVID.

According to WHO, the biggest increases in COVID-19 cases were seen in the Western Pacific and the Middle East, where they jumped by more than a quarter. Deaths spiked by 78% in the Middle

East and by 23% in Southeast Asia, while dropping elsewhere or remaining stable. WHO said that relaxed COVID-19 surveillance and testing programs in numerous countries have complicated efforts to track the virus and to catch any potentially dangerous new variants.