WHO assured the world has entered a plateau of COVID-19 infections

World Health Organization (WHO) chief epidemiologist Maria van Kerkhove said on Tuesday that the world has entered the plateau of the coronavirus contagion curve.

“The cases have reached a plateau around the world, but this plateau shows a fairly high level of intensity, recording between 4.4 and 4.5 million cases each week, figures which are obviously below real levels ”, Van Kerkhove explained this during a press conference broadcast on social networks and collected by the Sputnik press agency.

“But an uneven situation is observed in different regions”, warned the expert, because while in Latin America cases have declined in recent weeks, in parts of Europe and Africa they have increased.

At present, according to Van Kerkhove, between 67,000 and 68,000 fatal cases are recorded each week, with the highest growth in South and North America.

As for Europe, there has been a decrease in COVID-19 cases, but the number of deaths is increasing, while in Asia, morbidity and mortality from COVID-19 are declining.

Since the start of the pandemic more than 221 million infections and more than 4.5 million deaths from COVID-19 have been recorded, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The appearance of the Delta variant and the success of vaccination programs mark the future of the pandemic.

AFRICA CRISIS

Africa has passed the 200,000 deaths due to the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic, amid a dire vaccine shortage and with less than 3% of its population fully immune.

The 54 countries in the region, which have not yet been as affected as other parts of the world, have recorded a total of 200,254 deaths, according to a tally from the AFP.

After several particularly deadly months, with 27,000 dead in July and 26,000 in August, the spread of the pandemic has run out of steam on the continent in a few weeks. Currently, 617 deaths are recorded daily on the continent, while at the end of July there were up to 990, a recording.

Figures are based on daily reports from the health authorities in each country or from the World Health Organization (WHO).

WHO estimates that, if we take into account the excess mortality directly and indirectly linked to COVID-19, the number of victims of the pandemic could be two to three times higher than what is officially reported.

“The means of detection are very weak on the continent,” said South African scientist Glenda Davidson. AND the registration of deaths is very often approximate or inaccurate, he pointed out.

The recent continental decline in COVID-19 It is due to a sharp drop in infections in the most affected countries in the area.

In South Africa, the country officially hardest hit by the pandemic, with 83,899 deaths from COVID-19, over the past seven days there have been some 7,400 new cases and 234 deaths per day on average, while than in July up to 20,000 cases and 420 deaths per day.

(With information from Europa Press and AFP)

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