Though COVID-19 cases and deaths continued to decline over the past 4 weeks, the World Health Organization (WHO) is tracking rises in two of its regions, South East Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean. In its weekly update today, it also noted rises in individual countries in other parts of the world.
The World Health Organization (WHO) this week boosted the XBB.1.16 Omicron subvariant to a variant of interest (VOI) from a variant under monitoring (VUM), based on the latest assessments from its technical advisory group on virus evolution.
The subvariant is fueling India's biggest surge in about 7 months, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported another jump in the proportion of XBB.1.16 viruses.
Experts often cite mistrust of the government as a key reason certain communities have suffered disproportionately during deadly outbreaks, including Ebola and Covid-19. Mistrust is a serious problem in a pandemic if it prevents people from obeying health recommendations, seeking medical care and accepting vaccines.
The World Health Organization (WHO) in its weekly pandemic update said yesterday that COVID-19 cases and deaths declined over the last month, but added that levels are rising in 31% of countries, especially in two world regions.
Cases rise in India and the Middle East
Also, the WHO on March 30 added one more variant under monitoring to its list, XBB.1.9.1.
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