The global number of Covid cases has declined by six percent, and the number of deaths by 12 percent over the past week, the World Health Organisation has said.

While the number of cases reported globally now exceeds 177 million, last week saw the lowest weekly case incidence since February 2021.

“Global numbers of cases and deaths continued to decrease over the past week (14-20 June 2021) with over 2.5 million new weekly cases and over 64,000 deaths, a 6 percent and a 12 percent decrease respectively, compared to the previous week,” according to the WHO’s weekly epidemiological update on Tuesday.

Last week, the incidence of new cases declined in Southeast Asia (21 percent) and Europe (6 percent). The rate of mortality was also down in America (4 percent) Southeast Asia (26 percent), Europe (12 percent), and Western Pacific (9 percent).

On the other hand, deaths rose by 2 percent in the Eastern Mediterranean. Africa reported a 39 percent increase in cases and a 38 percent rise in mortality.

Globally, mortality remained high with more than 9,000 deaths reported each day over the past week, however, the number of new deaths reported in the past week decreased across all regions except for the Eastern Mediterranean and the African Regions, the WHO said.

The highest numbers of new cases were reported from Brazil (505,344 new cases; 11 percent increase), India (441,976 new cases; 30 percent decrease), Colombia (193,907 new cases; 10 percent increase), Argentina (149,673 new cases; 16 percent decrease), and the Russian Federation (108,139 new cases; 31 percent increase).

The WHO update also noted that the variants of concern (VOC) have continued to spread all over the world. Last week, the Alpha Covid variant spread to seven new countries, taking the total number to 170 countries, and the Beta variant spread to four new countries and is now present in 119 countries. Gamma has now been reported in 71 countries (three new countries last week) and Delta in 85 countries (six new countries last week).

Further, the update stated that the Delta variant is far more contagious than the Alpha variant, and is expected to become the dominant strain of SARS-CoV-2 if the current trend continues. However, “current vaccines are still effective at protecting against severe disease and hospitalisation”, the WHO said.

It added that “evidence from multiple countries with the extensive transmission of VOCs has indicated that public health and social measures have been effective in reducing Covid-19 case incidences.