KUALA LUMPUR (July 29): American infectious disease epidemiologist and World Health Organization (WHO) Covid-19 technical lead Maria Van Kerkhove said there was a continued increase in case detections of Covid-19.

In a twitter feed on Friday (July 29), Van Kerkhove said it was the fifth or sixth week in a row with an increase in the reported number of cases.

She said Omicron, the latest variant of concern, is dominant worldwide, and there are many sub-variants and sub-lineages of Omicron that are currently circulating.

“About half of the sequences that have been shared in the last four weeks or so are BA.5, one of the sub-lineages, and there are even further sub-lineages of BA.5.

"This virus has continued to evolve, driven by a number of factors,’ she said.

She said this was driven by intense mixing of individuals in the absence of mitigation measures — in the absence of mask-wearing and distancing.

Van Kerkhove said deaths also increased in the last five weeks.

She added that this was driven by some groups that were not well protected with the vaccine, meaning that they had not been vaccinated .

She said almost half of the deaths reported in the last week were from the Americas and about 33% of deaths were in Europe.

“Among the top 50 countries with increases in deaths, 35 countries had more than a 100% increase in deaths reported in the last week. Three countries had more than a 1,000% increase in deaths in the last week.

“It is not the trend that we want to be seeing right now. [However,] the good news is that our interventions continued to work against all of the variants, and all of the sub-variants as well.

"We just need to consistently apply and use them, really focusing mostly on vaccinating those who are most at risk, and using other measures to lower the risk of infection,” she said.