The World Health Organisation says there has been a steady increase in the number of global COVID-19 cases recorded in the past week, however, the number of cases from the African region has declined by 23% while the mortality rate has declined by 18%.
The WHO in its weekly epidemiological report said over 4.4 million new COVID-19 cases were reported globally in the past week starting August 9th and ending August 15th bringing the number of cumulative cases all over the world to over 206 million cases.
The health organization noted that despite the increase in global cases, there has been a decline in the figures recorded from Africa. According to the report, “the African Region reported the largest percentage decrease in cases and death incidence, 23%, and 18% respectively”.
The Region reported just over 139,000 new cases and over 3900 new deaths. The overall decrease in weekly cases reported in the region since the middle of July has been largely driven by declines observed in South Africa. In contrast, many other countries in the region continue to report increases in case incidence. For mortality, the trend in the region is largely driven by a decline in new weekly deaths reported by a majority of the countries in the Region, including Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe among others.
The highest numbers of new cases were reported from South Africa (58 939 new cases; 99.4 new cases per 100 000 population; 22% decrease), Botswana (14 184 new cases; 603.2 new cases per 100 000; 11% decrease), and Kenya (7685 new cases; 14.3 new cases per 100 000; 2% decrease)
The report also identified the countries where the most increase in cases was recorded.
“The increasing trend in global cases is largely attributed to increases in the Western Pacific Region and the Region of the Americas which reported 14% and 8% increases respectively as compared to the previous week,” it said.
According to the report, the highest numbers of new cases in the past week were reported by the United States of America, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and India. While the highest numbers of new deaths in the past week were reported in Indonesia, Brazil, and Russia.