WHO records 13 million cases of COVID-19

Between December 19, 2022, and January 15, 2023, the World Health Organization reported roughly 13 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 infections, as well as nearly 53,000 fatalities worldwide.

This information was provided by the WHO in its weekly COVID-19 epidemiological bulletin, which our correspondent received on Thursday.

According to the data, there was a 20% increase in instances compared to the preceding 28 days.

It said, “Globally, nearly 2.8 million new cases and over 13,000 deaths were reported in the week of January 9 to 15 2023. In the last 28 days (December 19, 2022, to January 15, 2023), nearly 13 million cases and almost 53,000 new deaths were reported globally – a decrease of seven per cent and an increase of 20 per cent, respectively, compared to the previous 28 days.

“As of January 15, 2023, over 662 million confirmed cases and over 6.7 million deaths have been reported globally.”

According to the UN health agency, the update includes cases and fatalities that China has reported through the International Health Regulations as of January 15, 2023, but excludes the 59,938 COVID-19-related deaths that China has reported for the time period from December 8, 2022, to January 8, 2023.

The WHO further said that prevalence surveys reveal that the present trends in reported COVID-19 cases are underestimates of the total number of global infections and reinfections.

“Therefore, the data should be interpreted with caution as several countries have progressively changed COVID-19 testing strategies, resulting in lower numbers of tests performed and consequently lower numbers of cases detected.

“Additionally, data from previous weeks are continuously updated to retrospectively incorporate changes in reported COVID-19 cases and deaths made by countries,” it said.

Through the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data, a total of 85,489 SARS-CoV-2 sequences were distributed globally between December 16, 2022, and January 16, 2023. The Omicron variant of concern was present in 85,461 of these sequences, or 99.9% of all sequences reported in the previous 30 days.

GISAID is a global science project that offers free access to the genomes of the coronavirus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as influenza viruses.

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