An average of 80,000 COVID-19 cases were reported each day in April to the World Health Organization, the top UN health agency has said, noting that South Asian nations like India and Bangladesh are seeing a spike in the infections while the numbers are declining in regions such as Western Europe.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said onWednesday that countries must also be able to manage any risk of the diseasebeing imported into their territories, and communities should be fully educatedto adjust to what will be a “new norm”.
He said as the countries press forward in the common fightagainst COVID-19, they should also lay the groundwork for resilient healthsystems globally.
“More than 3.5 million cases of COVID-19 and almost250,000 deaths have now been reported to the WHO. Since the beginning of April,an average of around 80,000 new cases have been reported to the WHO everyday,” Ghebreyesus said in Geneva Wednesday.
Asserting that the virus cases were not just numbers, hesaid: “every single case is a mother, a father, a son, a daughter, abrother, sister or friend”.
He said while the numbers are declining in Western Europe,more cases are being reported every day from Eastern Europe, Africa, South-EastAsia, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Americas. Even within regions andwithin countries, there are divergent trends, the agency added.
While some countries are reporting an increase in COVID-19cases over time, many have seen caseloads rise because they have ramped uptesting, the WHO official said.
“We’ve also seen in Europe and Western Europe afundamental decrease in the number of cases, but we have seen an associatedincrease in the number of cases reported in places like the Russian Federation.Southeast, the Western Pacific areas are relatively on the downward trend likeKorea and others, but then we do see in South Asia, in places like Bangladesh,in India, some trends towards increase.
“So it’s very difficult to say that any particularregion is improving or (not improving). There are individual countries withineach region that are having difficulties getting on top of this disease and Iam particularly concerned about those countries that have (an) ongoinghumanitarian crisis,” WHO’s Executive Director Michael Ryan said.
The death toll due to COVID-19 in India rose to 1,783 whilethe number of cases climbed to 52,952 on Thursday, registering an increase of89 deaths and 3,561 cases in the last 24 hours, the Union Health Ministry said.
The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 35,902 while15,266 people have recovered, it said.
Noting that while seeing an increase in the number of casesis not good in terms of transmission, WHO’s Emerging Diseases and Zoonoses Unithead Maria Van Kerkhove said: “but I don’t want to equate that withsomething (being) wrong”.
“I want to equate that with countries are working very hardto increase their ability to find the virus, to find people with the virus, tohave testing in place to identify who has COVID-19, and putting into place whatthey need to do to care for those patients,” Kerkhove said.
With more countries considering easing restrictionsimplemented to curb the spread of the coronavirus, the WHO has again remindedthe authorities of the need to maintain vigilance.
“The risk of returning to lockdown remains very real ifcountries do not manage the transition extremely carefully, and in a phasedapproach,” Ghebreyesus said.
He urged countries to consider the UN agency’s six criteriafor lifting stay-at-home measures.