Global COVID-19 case count down 15% in past week — WHO

Over 3.5 million novel coronavirus cases and over 78,000 deaths were registered worldwide in the past week, the World Health Organization (WHO) said a weekly bulletin released in Geneva early on Wednesday.

"The number of new COVID-19 cases and deaths continues to decrease, with over 3.5 million new cases and 78,000 new deaths reported globally in the past week; a 15% and 7% decrease respectively, compared to the previous week," the global organization said in its COVID-19 Weekly Epidemiological Update.

On May 24-30, the global organization was informed about 3,550,456 new cases all over the world, and 78,667 COVID-related deaths. As of May 30, a total of 169,604,858 cases of the infection and 3,530,837 COVID-related fatalities have been reported worldwide.

Last week, case count increased in Africa (up 22%) and Western Pacific (up 6%) and declined in Europe (down 26%), in Southeast Asia (down 24%), in North and South America (down 2%), and Eastern Mediterranean (down 1%). Mortality increased in Africa (up 11%), but declined in Eastern Mediterranean (down 18%), Europe (down 17%), Southeast Asia (down 8%), Western Pacific (down 2%) and North and South America (down 1%).

In the past seven days, over 430,000 people contracted the infection in Europe, over 11,000 patients died. The number of cases in North and South America increased by over 1.1 million in the reported period, while fatalities grew by 31,000. In Southeast Asia, doctors registered over 1.5 million new cases of the novel coronavirus, over 29,000 patients died.

India accounts for the majority of cases registered in the past week (1.3 million new cases), followed by Brazil (over 420,000 new cases), Argentina (over 219,000), the United States (over 153,000), Colombia (over 150,000), Iran (over 69,000), Russia (over 61,000), France (over 60,000), Turkey (over 57,000), Nepal (over 47,000), Chile (over 46,000) and Indonesia (over 39,000).