On Wednesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that the total number of new COVID-19 cases around the world continued to fall last week, with 3.6 million new cases reported, down from 4 million new infections the previous week.
Last week’s drop marked the first substantial decline for more than two months, with falling COVID-19 cases in every world region.
In its latest update on the pandemic released on Wednesday, WHO said there were major decreases in cases in two regions: a 22% fall in the Middle East and a 16% drop in Southeast Asia.
The U.N. health agency said there were just under 60,000 deaths in the past week, a 7% decline. It said that while Southeast Asia reported a 30% decrease in COVID-19 deaths, the Western Pacific region reported a 7% increase.
The newest coronavirus cases were seen in the U.S., India, Britain, Turkey, and the Philippines.
The organization also revised its list of “variants of interest,” or those that it believes have the potential to cause big outbreaks; WHO said it’s tracking the lambda and mu variants, which both arose in Latin America but have yet to cause widespread epidemics.
WHO has previously said that in all countries where the delta variant is circulating, it has become the predominant virus.
Follow the latest news on Google News
