Global Covid cases surpass 600 mn: WHO

GENEVA: The Covid-19 global cases have surpassed 600 million, a depressing milestone in the deadly disease that continues to linger after it first started to manifest in the early 2020s according to the most recent information of the World Health Organization (WHO).

As of Friday morning, the total caseload was at 600,555,262, with a total of 6,472,914 deaths.

The US is the country with the worst impact with the highest amount of Covid deaths and cases of 93,216,822 and 1,034,719, respectively.

In terms of instances, India comes in second with 44,436,339 and is followed by Brazil with 34,414,011.

Brazil is the second most deaths, with 683,851, with India in third place with 527,911 deaths.

According to the report of WHO regional offices, Europe and the Americas have reported so far over 248 million cases and 175 million confirmed, and 2,077,355 deaths and 2,817,530 deaths respectively.

The two regions together make up more than 70 percent of the world’s confirmed cases and more than 75 percent of deaths.

Although the weekly number of new cases of Covid-19 and deaths have been declining, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared in the last week that the globe was past “the tragic threshold of one million deaths reported to date this year” according to Xinhua news agency.

“We cannot claim that we are living with Covid since one million people died with Covid-19 in the last year alone, even though we are two and a half years into the disease and possess all the equipment needed to stop these deaths.”

The WHO has urged all countries of any income level to get vaccinated the most vulnerable populations and to make sure that everyone has access to life-saving treatments while ensuring that testing and sequencing continue of the virus.

Omicron remains the most prevalent variant with Omicron being the most prevalent variant, with BA.5 sub-variant comprising more than 90 percent of sequences that are shared with the WHO.

However the amount of sequences that are shared each week has dropped by 90 percent in the first quarter of this year as well as the number of countries that share sequences has fallen by 75 percent making it difficult to comprehend the way in which the virus is changing.

With the arrival of colder weather in the northern part of the hemisphere, Tedros has cautioned that an increase in hospitalisations and deaths due to Covid-19 is likely in the next few months.