After five weeks of declining COVID-19 deaths, the number of fatalities reported globally increased by 4% last week, according to the WHO.
In its weekly assessment of the pandemic issued on Thursday (June 16), the U.N. health agency said there were 8,700 COVID-19 deaths last week, with a 21% jump in the Americas and a 17% increase in the Western Pacific.
WHO said COVID-19 cases continued to fall, with about 3.2 million new cases reported last week, extending a decline in infections since the peak in January. Still, there were significant spikes of infection in some regions, with the Middle East and Southeast Asia reporting increases of 58% and 33% respectively.
“Because many countries have reduced surveillance and testing, we know this number is under-reported,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said earlier this week.