Wednesday, 6 April 2022

The latest edition of the weekly epidemiological update has been published: 

Weekly epidemiological update on COVID-19 - 5 April 2022 (who.int)

After the increase observed during the first half of March 2022, the number of new COVID-19 cases has decreased for a second consecutive week, with a 16% decline during the week of 28 March through 3 April 2022 as compared to the previous week.

The number of new weekly deaths also decreased sharply (-43%) as compared to the previous week, during which an artificial spike in deaths was observed.

Across the six WHO regions, over nine million new cases and over 26 000 new deaths were reported, and all the regions show decreasing trends both in the number of new weekly cases and new weekly deaths.

As of 3 April 2022, just over 489 million cases and over 6 million deaths have been reported globally.

Important Note

• The XE recombinant (BA.1-BA.2) is being tracked as part of the Omicron variant. This recombinant was first detected in the United Kingdom on 19 January and a few hundred sequences have been reported and confirmed since. Early estimates based on limited preliminary data suggest that XE has a community growth rate advantage of about 10% as compared to BA.2, however this finding requires further confirmation. Some media have misreported the potential growth advantage of 10%  as 10 times. This is incorrect. If the 10% increase in growth is confirmed, this variant would be 1.1 times more transmissible not 10 times.
• WHO continues to closely monitor and assess the public health risk associated with recombinant variants, alongside other SARS-CoV-2 variants, and will provide updates as further evidence becomes available.

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