The number of new coronavirus cases across the world continued to decline last week, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday. A total of 36 lakh new Covid-19 cases were reported globally between September 13 and 19, as compared to 40 lakh in the preceding week, the global health body said.
Among the WHO’s regions, the Americas, Eastern Mediterranean, South East Asia and Western Pacific reported a decline in new cases, as per the global health body’s most recent data.
The WHO said that the sharpest declines were registered in West Asia (22%) and South East Asia (16%), according to AP.
The global health body said on Tuesday that the Delta variant of Covid-19 continued to be the predominant strain around the globe, according to AFP. WHO’s technical lead on Covid-19 Maria Van Kerkhove said the Delta variant has been identified in 185 countries so far.
“Delta [variant] has become more fit, it is more transmissible and it is out-competing, it is replacing the other viruses that are circulating,” she said.
Meanwhile, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus thanked India for its decision to resume the exports of Covid-19 vaccines.
“This is an important development in support of reaching the 40% vaccination target in all countries by the end of the year,” he said.
On Monday, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said that India will resume exporting surplus coronavirus vaccines from October. India had halted export of Covid-19 vaccines in April after the second wave of the pandemic started to peak.
Later on Wednesday, United States President Joe Biden is expected to announce that the country will donate an additional 50 crore Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines to other countries, AFP reported, citing unidentified officials. The move would take the country’s total commitments on donating vaccines to 110 crore.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the coronavirus has infected over 22.95 crore people and caused more than 47 lakh deaths globally since the pandemic broke out in December 2019.
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