Reports indicate that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is increasing in certain regions of the world, with the positivity rate of Covid-19 tests reaching July 2024 levels, stated the World Health Organization (WHO) today.
“In a global context, this increase is observed mainly in countries in the Eastern Mediterranean, Southeast Asia, and Western Pacific regions.”
According to the United Nations agency, since mid-February 2025, global SARS-CoV-2 activity has been increasing in these regions, with the test positivity rate reaching 11%, levels that have not been observed since July 2024.
In countries in the African, European, and American regions, low levels of SARS-CoV-2 activity have been reported with percentages of positivity or systematic virological surveillance ranging from 2% to 3%, state WHO reports.
The notification of hospitalisations, admissions to intensive care units, and deaths associated with Covid-19 is very limited in the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean region, Southeast Asia, and Western Pacific areas that do not allow the WHO to assess the impact on health systems.
The WHO also notes that, since the beginning of this year, global trends in SARS-CoV-2 variants have changed slightly, with the circulation of LP.8.1 decreasing and NB.1.8.1, a variant under monitoring, increasing, reaching 10.7% of the global sequences reported in mid-May.
The organisation advises all its member states to continue to apply an integrated, risk-based approach to the management of Covid-19 and warns that vaccination remains a “key intervention” to prevent severe illness and death, particularly among at-risk groups.
The first cases of infection by the new coronavirus were detected in China in December 2019, with the virus spreading rapidly to other countries, which led the WHO to declare an International Public Health Emergency on the 30th of January 2020, and to declare it a pandemic on the 11th of March 2020.
On the 5th of May 2023, more than three years after the beginning of the pandemic, WHO considered that Covid-19 no longer represented an international public health emergency.
Samantha Gannon
info at madeira-weekly.com
