New COVID-19 cases increase sharply as new deaths decreased worldwide: WHO

Special: Battle Against Novel Coronavirus

The global number of new COVID-19 cases increased sharply by 71 percent last week compared to the previous week, but the number of new deaths decreased by 10 percent, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Thursday.

WHO said in a weekly update on the pandemic situation that there were about 9.5 million new cases and over 41,000 new deaths reported from Dec. 27 of 2021 to Jan. 2 of this year.

All regions reported an increase in the incidence of weekly cases, with the America reporting the largest increase (100 percent), followed by South-East Asia (78 percent) and Europe (65 percent).

WHO said that while Africa still reported a weekly increase in the number of new deaths, all the other regions in the world reported a decrease as compared to the previous week.