The number of new infections declined by 14%, while the number of fatalities grew by 43% compared to the previous seven-day period.

"During the week of 21 through 27 March 2022, the number of new cases declined again with a 14% decrease as compared to the previous week. On the other hand, during the same period, the number of new weekly deaths has increased by 43%, driven by changes in the definition of COVID-19 deaths in countries in the Region of the Americas (Chile and the United States of America) and retrospective adjustments reported from India in the South-East Asia Region," the global organization said in its COVID-19 Weekly Epidemiological Update. 

Overall, a total of 10,805,132 new cases and 45,711 deaths were reported to the global organization on March 21-27.

The decline in case incidence was reported by all the six WHO global regions, particularly Eastern Mediterranean (down 32%), Africa (down 29%) and Western Pacific (down 24%). In Europe, which accounts for 49% of all new cases registered worldwide in the past week, the case count declied by 4%.

Mortality grew in America (up 182%) and Southeast Asia (up 116%), but declined in other regions, including Africa (down 30%), Eastern Mediterranean (down 22%) and Europe (down 17%).

The biggest number of infections was reported by the Republic of Korea (2,442,195), followed by Germany (1,576,261), Vietnam (1,127,716), France (845,119) and Italy (503,932). Chile accounts for the biggest number of fatalities in the past seven days (11,858), followed by the United States (5,367), India (4,525), Russia (2,859) and the Republic of Korea (2,471).

The WHO cumulative global statistics indicated 481,756,671 cases and 6,127,981 fatalities registered worldwide since the start of the pandemic. The number of new cases grew by 1,342,231 in the past day, while fatalities increased by 2,841.

More about: WHO   coronavirus