WHO reports global COVID cases rise 18% as BA.4 and BA.5 expand
The weekly epidemiological update report on COVID-19 released by the World Health Organization (WHO) on June 29, 2022 reported that globally the number of weekly cases had increased for the third consecutive week.
There had been a declining trend since the last peak in March 2022. During the week June 20-26, 2022, over 4.1 million new cases were reported, an 18% increase as compared to the previous week.
The number of new weekly deaths remained similar to that of the previous week, with over 8500 fatalities reported.
At the regional level, the number of new weekly cases increased in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (+47%), the European Region (+33%), the South-East Asia Region (+32%), and the Region of the Americas (+14%), while it decreased in the African Region (-39%) and the Western Pacific Region (-3%).
The number of new weekly deaths increased in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (+22%), the South-East Asia Region (+15%), and the Region of the Americas (+11%), while decreases were observed in the Western Pacific Region (-6%), the European Region (-5%) and the African Region (-1%). As of June 26, 2022, over 541 million confirmed cases and over 6.3 million deaths have been reported globally.
These trends should be interpreted with caution as several countries have been progressively changing COVID-19 testing strategies, resulting in lower overall numbers of tests performed and consequently lower numbers of cases detected.
There continues to be a decline in the number of SARS-CoV-2 sequences submitted to GISAID, as compared to January 2022 when 1,248,906 sequences were submitted. From May 27 to June 27, 2022, 146,183 SARS-CoV-2 sequences were submitted to GISAID. Among these sequences, the Omicron VOC remains the dominant variant circulating globally, accounting for 94% of sequences reported in the past 30 days.
Among Omicron sequences, as of epidemiological week 24 (June13-19, 2022) BA.2 represents 25%, while BA.2.12.1 represents 11%, BA.4 represents 12%, and BA.5 represents 43%. Comparing the proportion of Omicron sequences submitted during epidemiological weeks 23 (June 6 to 12) and 24, BA.2 declined from 30% to 25%, BA.2.12.1 declined from 18% to 11%, while BA.4 increased from 9% to 12% and BA.5 increased from 28% to 43%.
These trends should be interpreted with due consideration of the limitations of surveillance systems, including differences in sequencing capacity and sampling strategies between countries,
