GENEVA • The coronavirus variant first detected in India has now been officially recorded in 53 territories, a World Health Organisation (WHO) report showed yesterday.
Additionally, the WHO has received information from unofficial sources that the B1617 variant has been found in seven other territories, figures in the United Nations health agency's weekly epidemiological update showed, taking the total to 60.
The report said B1617 had shown increased transmissibility, while disease severity and risk of infection were under investigation.
Globally over the past week, the number of new cases and deaths continued to fall, with about 4.1 million new cases and 84,000 new deaths reported. These new cases are a 14 per cent decrease and the new deaths a 2 per cent decrease compared with the previous week.
The WHO's European region reported the largest decline in new cases and deaths in the past seven days, followed by the South-east Asian region.
The numbers of cases reported by the Americas, Eastern Mediterranean, Africa and the Western Pacific region were similar to those reported in the previous week.
"Despite a declining global trend over the past four weeks... Covid-19 cases and deaths remain high, and substantial increases have been observed in many countries throughout the world," the document said.
The highest numbers of new cases in the past seven days were from India (1,846,055, down 23 per cent); Brazil (451,424, up 3 per cent); Argentina (213,046, up 41 per cent), the United States (188,410, down 20 per cent), and Colombia (107,590, down 7 per cent).
The update gave information on the four mutations classed as variants of concern: those first reported in Britain (B117), South Africa (B1351), Brazil (P1) and India (B1617). When counting the total number of territories reporting each variant, the WHO added those from which it had unofficial information.
B117 has now been reported in 149 territories; B1351 in 102 territories and P1 in 59 territories.
Meanwhile, the US and other countries called on Tuesday for a more in-depth investigation into the pandemic's origins, after an international mission to China earlier this year proved inconclusive.
Addressing the WHO's main annual meeting of member states, representatives from several countries stressed the need to solve the mystery of how Covid-19 first began spreading among humans.
"We underscore the importance of a robust, comprehensive and expert-led inquiry into the origins of Covid-19," US representative Jeremy Konyndyk told the World Health Assembly.
The European Union, Australia and Japan were among others who called for more progress on the investigation, while the British representative urged that any probe be "timely, expert-driven and grounded in robust science".
Determining how the virus that causes Covid-19 began spreading is seen as vital to preventing future pandemics.
But a long-delayed report by a team of international experts sent to Wuhan and their Chinese counterparts drew no firm conclusions on the origins of the pandemic.
Instead, they ranked a number of hypotheses according to how likely they believed they were.
The report said the virus jumping from bats to humans via an intermediate animal was the most probable scenario, while a theory involving the virus leaking from a laboratory was "extremely unlikely".
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
