Over 1 lakh cases of Covid-19 reported globally every day: WHO

The number of Covid-19 cases reported across the globe has seen a massive spike over the past two weeks, the World Health Organization said on Monday.

“It took more than 2 months for the first 1,00,000 cases to be reported. For the past two weeks, more than 1,00,000 new cases have been reported almost every single day,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Ghebreyesus said that over 7.8 million cases of Covid-19 had been reported as of Monday with over 4,30,000 deaths. However, almost 75 per cent of these cases come from 10 countries, most of them in the Americas and South Asia.

The WHO chief further warned of possible resurgence in the countries that have been able to control transmission citing the example of China. “Last week, China reported a new cluster of cases in Beijing, after more than 50 days without a case in that city. More than 100 cases have now been confirmed,” he said.

The UN health agency is investigating the resurgence of the outbreak. “We also see increasing numbers of cases in Africa, eastern Europe, central Asia and the Middle East,” he added.

Ghebreyesus urged countries to remain vigilant. He further detailed how surveillance for other diseases has been declining in light of the pandemic and the impact it can have on the population.

“Influenza surveillance has either been suspended or is declining in many countries, and there has been a sharp decline in sharing of influenza information and viruses because of the Covid-19 pandemic,” he said. “These disruptions may have short- and long-term effects, such as the loss of capacities to detect and report new influenza viruses with pandemic potential,” he added.

The WHO has recently published guidance on integrating Covid-19 surveillance measures into routine influenza surveillance “as an efficient way to track both of these important respiratory viruses.”

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