Coronavirus cases worldwide up 14% in past week — WHO

More than 5.2 million novel coronavirus cases were registered worldwide in the past week, which is 11% more than during the previous seven-day period, the World Health Organization (WHO) said a weekly bulletin released in Geneva late on Tuesday.

Mortality grew by 8% in the past week, with over 83,000 deaths registered worldwide.

According to the organization, global COVID-19 case tally continues to grow for the eighth consecutive week, and currently exceeds the peak figures registered in January 2021.

On April 12-18, the global organization was informed about 5,236,922 new cases all over the world, and 83,305 deaths. As of April 18, more than 140.33 million cases and 3,004,088 COVID-related fatalities were reported worldwide.

The most noticeable growth in cases was registered in Southeast Asia (up 57%) and Western Pacific (up 15%). At the same time, cases declined in Europe (down 3%). Mortality increased in Southeast Asia (up 49%), Eastern Mediterranean (up 23%) and Africa (up 14%), and declined in Western Pacific (down 8%) and Europe (down 3%).

In the past seven days, over 1.6 million people contracted the infection in Europe, over 26,000 patients died. The number of cases in North and South America increased by over 1.5 million in the reported period, while fatalities grew by 39,000. In Southeast Asia, doctors registered over 1.5 million new cases of novel coronavirus, over 9,000 patients died.