95% COVID-19 cases in South-East Asia and 50% of global cases from India: WHO

India continues to account for 95 per cent of COVID-19 cases and 93 per cent of deaths in the South-East Asia region, World Health Organisation has stated in its weekly Epidemiological Update released today.

The release stated that India accounted for 50 per cent of the global COVID-19 cases and 30 per cent of global deaths and “worrying trends have been observed in neighbouring countries”.

The WHO weekly Epidemiological Update observes that the number of new COVID-19 cases and deaths globally decreased slightly during the week, with over 5.5 million cases and over 90,000 deaths.

“Case and death incidence, however, remains at the highest level since the beginning of the pandemic. New weekly cases decreased in the regions of Europe and Eastern Mediterranean, while the South-East Asia Region continued an upward trajectory for 9 weeks and reported a further 6 per cent increase last week,” according to the release.

The highest numbers of new cases were reported from India (2 738 957 new cases; 5 per cent increase), Brazil (423 438 new cases; similar to previous week), the United States of America (334 784 new cases; 3 per cent decrease), Turkey (166 733 new cases; 35 per cent decrease), and Argentina (140 771 new cases; 8 per cent decrease).