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World Health Organization (WHO) director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Thursday said that the more infectious Omicron variant of coronavirus appears to produce less severe disease than the globally dominant Delta strain, but should not be categorised as "mild"
Addressing a press briefing, the head of global health body also repeated his call for greater equity globally in the distribution of and access to Covid-19 vaccines.
Based on the current rate of Covid-19 vaccine rollout, 109 nations will miss the WHO's target for 70% of the world's population to be fully vaccinated by July, Tedros added. That aim is seen as helping end the acute phase of the pandemic.
Who chief on IHU
Another variant - labelled as IHU and first registered in September 2021 - is among those being monitored by the WHO but is not circulating widely, said the WHO's technical lead on Covid-19, Maria van Kerkhove.
There are two other categories of greater significance the WHO uses to track variants "variant of concern", which includes Delta and Omicron, and "variant of interest".
Speaking at the same briefing from Geneva, WHO adviser Bruce Aylward said 36 nations had not even reached 10 percent vaccination cover. Among severe patients worldwide, 80 percent were unvaccinated, he added.
The WHO also said that the number of new Covid-19 cases increased exponentially by 71 per cent globally during the week December 27-January 2 as compared to the previous week, while the number of new deaths decreased by 10 per cent.
The Covid-19 Weekly Epidemiological Update, released by the global health agency, said that during the week of December 27 to January 2, following a gradual increase since October, the global number of new cases increased sharply by 71% as compared to the previous week.
The number of new deaths decreased by 10%. This corresponds to just under 9.5 million new cases and over 41,000 new deaths reported during the last week. As of January 2, a total of nearly 289 million cases and over 5.4 million deaths have been reported globally, the update by the World Health Organisation said.
It said that all regions reported an increase in the incidence of weekly cases, with the Region of the Americas reporting the largest increase (100%), followed by the South-East Asia (78%), European (65%), Eastern Mediterranean (40%), Western Pacific (38%) and the African (7%) Regions.
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