Covid cases rising in world as pandemic not yet over, WHO warns

COVID-19 cases have been reported in 110 countries, with global infections increasing by 20% and deaths surging in half of the six World Health Organization administrative regions, the chief of the UN health authority said on Wednesday.

"This pandemic is changing. We have made progress, but it's not over," said WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus at a media webinar.

"Our ability to track the virus is under threat as reporting, and genomic sequences are declining, meaning it is becoming harder to track omicron and analyze future emerging variants."

Tedros recalled that the WHO had called on all countries to vaccinate at least 70% of their populations by mid-year.

As of June 28, according to the WHO, there had been over 542 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, including almost 6.4 million deaths.

Tedros said more than 12 billion vaccines have been distributed worldwide in the past 18 months.

He further said: "75% of the world's health workers and over-60s are now vaccinated.

"The Lancet (medical publication) estimates that 20 million lives have been saved because of vaccines."

On the flip side, he said hundreds of millions of people, including tens of millions of health workers and older people in low-income countries, remain unvaccinated.

That means "they are more vulnerable to future waves of the virus," said the WHO chief.

"While the hoarding of vaccines by rich and manufacturing countries was the major barrier to access last year, increasingly, there is political commitment to getting vaccines out to people," he said.

Still, "challenges of disinformation have been hurdles at the national level in 2022," he added.