COVID-19 cases worldwide down 4%, deaths down 2% in past week: WHO

More than 2.7 million people contracted COVID-19 between October 11 and 17, over 46,000 people died, the World Health Organization said in its weekly bulletin.

"With the exception of the European region, which for the third consecutive week reported an increase in new COVID-19 cases (7% increase as compared with the previous week), all the other regions reported a decline," the WHO Weekly Epidemiological Update says.

The largest decrease in new weekly cases was reported from the African Region (18%), followed by the Western Pacific Region (17%). The largest decline in new weekly deaths was reported from the African region, showing a 24% decrease as compared to the previous week, and in Southeast Asia (down 19%).

Mortality increase was registered only in Europe (up 4%) and Western Pacific (up 1%).

In accordance with the bulletin's figures, a total of 2,763,957 new COVID-19 cases and 46,140 COVID-related deaths were registered worldwide on October 11-17, down 4% and 2% respectively since the previous seven-day period (October 4-10).

The biggest numbers of new cases were reported to the WHO by the United States (582,707), the United Kingdom (283,756), Russia (217,322), Turkey (213,981) and India (114,244).

The cumulative number of confirmed cases reported globally is now 240,940,937, and the cumulative number of deaths is 4,903,911. In the past 24 hours, the global organization was informed about 325,875 cases and 5,201 deaths.

Source: BSS/TASS