WHO: world reached plateau in COVID-19 incidence

The world has reached a plateau in terms of the incidence of COVID-19, but a different situation is observed in different regions of the planet, Maria van Kerkhove, expert of the World Health Organization (WHO) said during the broadcast online Q&A session with users of social networks.

"We’ve reached a plateau in cases around the world, but that plateau is on a really high intensity level. There are about 4.4-4.5 million cases being reported each week and that is certainly an underestimate of the true number of cases that are actually occurring around the world. And we have 67,000-68,000 deaths per week," she said.

She added that by region the dynamics is very different and there is "no one snapshot of how this virus is circulating."

"The reason why is it so worrying is because we are 20 months into the pandemic and we have tools that can actually prevent those infections from the spread and save people’s lives." she said.

According to the WHO data, in the last week, in the Americas there was an almost 20% increase in cases and a 17% increase in deaths, van Kerkhove said.

In Europe, there was a 4% decline in a number of cases but still more than 1 million cases reported and there was also a 20% increase in deaths.

In Southeastern Asia, the number of cases dropped by about 9% in the last week and there was 21% reduction in deaths.

In Western Pacific region there was a 3% reduction in cases and an 8% reduction in deaths.

In Africa, there was a 34% reduction in cases and a 26% reduction in deaths in the last week, the expert said.