Cases and victims declining from the pandemic globally, but increasing in some areas, especially in Spain. From 24 April to 21 May 2023, almost 2.3 million new cases of Covid and almost 15,000 deaths were reported worldwide, down 21% and 17% respectively compared to the previous 28 days. However, the pandemic rears its head in some areas such as Africa and the Western Pacific, and also in Spain where cases are growing by 25% and deaths by 92%. It emerges from the epidemiological report of the World Health Organization which updates the confirmed cases to 766 million and 6.9 million deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.
The number of cases, which is greatly underestimated as WHO specifies, decreases in 4 out of 6 WHO regions: Eastern Mediterranean (-48%), Europe (-45%), Americas (-41%) and South East Asia (- 31%) while they are increasing in Africa (+11%) and in the Western Pacific (+38%). Deaths increase in 4 out of 6 regions: Africa (+6%), Americas (+21%), Southeast Asia (+61%) and Western Pacific (+9%) while decreasing in the Eastern Mediterranean (-63%) and in Europe (-44%). Nationally, the highest number of new cases in 4 weeks is reported by the Republic of Korea (462,726, +52%) and the highest number of deaths by the United States (4,135, -31%).
In Europe, the highest number of new Covid infections is reported by France (122,239, -43%). The highest number of deaths was also in France (810, -1%), followed by Spain (745, +92%), the latter country also seeing an increase in cases (43,197, +25%) .
WHO is monitoring two variants of interest, XBB.1.5, called Kraken, and XBB.1.16, called Arturo. Globally, Kraken was reported from 113 countries and accounted for 41.6% of sequences examined in the week of May 1-7, a decrease of 50.4% from 4 weeks earlier. Arcturus from 1 to 7 May was reported by 58 countries and represents 13.2% of the sequences examined, equal to +6.9% in 28 days.