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The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported more than seven million deaths from Covid-19 and more than 776.8 million confirmed infections from the start of the pandemic until 10 November 2024. Most coronavirus-associated deaths occurred in 2020, 2021 and 2022, and increased immunity has subsequently led to a significant decline in deaths, the health agency stressed in a special edition of the epidemiological update on the coronavirus, five years after the first case of the disease was reported.
SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, circulates largely without clear seasonality and continues to infect people, continuing to cause severe acute illness in those infected, say WHO experts, who warn that the impact of the coronovirus varies by country and that the ability to monitor Covid circulation, severity and evolution "is threatened by reduced surveillance, testing and sequencing, and limited integration into long-term prevention programmes".
This reduction in Covid surveillance is one of the factors that may explain, according to WHO, the reduction in reported cases in recent weeks. In the latest four-week reporting period from 14 October to 10 November 2024, some 77 countries have reported infections. In addition, 27 deaths have been reported worldwide.
In its document, the agency also recalled that persistent Covid represents a major burden on health systems. WHO experts estimate that 6% of symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections result in symptoms of persistent covid.
As for the Covid-19 vaccine roll-out, it has evolved since 2021, with WHO initially highlighting that vaccination rates were highest in high-income countries. As of January 2024, WHO shifted from measuring continuous Covid-19 vaccination coverage from the start of vaccine roll-out to measuring annual uptake.
By the end of 2023, some 67% of the global population had completed the primary series and 32% had received at least one booster dose, although only 5% of people in low-income countries received a booster dose.
Using the new tracking approach, by the end of the third quarter of 2024, around 39.2 million people in 90 Member States (representing 31% of the world's population) received a dose this year, and 14.8 million in the third quarter alone.
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