COVID-19 Cases Worldwide Up 8%, Mortality Up 3% in Past Week: WHO

24 March 2021 Printable Version

Geneva - Just under 3.3 million new coronavirus cases were reported worldwide in the past week, while the number of new fatalities surpassed 60,000 according to the latest COVID-19 weekly update from the World Health Organization (WHO).

"The European Region and the Region of the Americas continue to account for nearly 80% of all the cases and deaths. The only WHO region to report a decline in new deaths this week was the Western Pacific where deaths fell by nearly a third, compared to the previous week," the WHO said in its weekly bulletin, released on Tuesday.

In the past week (March 15-21), the WHO registered a total of 3,291,360 new coronavirus cases (+ 8%) and 60,414 new deaths from COVID-19 (+ 3%).

"The highest numbers of new cases were reported from Brazil (508,010 new cases; + 3%), the United States of America (374,369 new cases; - 19%), India (240,082 new cases; + 62%), France (204,840 new cases; + 27%) and Italy (154,493 new cases; similar to the previous week)," the WHO said.

Overall, as of March 21, the WHO registered a total of 122,536,880 coronavirus cases confirmed globally and 2,703,780 COVID-19-related deaths.

The WHO said that the British variant was detected in seven additional countries in the past week.

"As of 23 March, a total of 125 countries across all six WHO regions have reported cases of this variant," the WHO said.

Meanwhile, the South African variant was detected in 11 additional countries, with a total of 75 countries now having confirmed cases of this coronavirus strain, according to the WHO.