The global pandemic situation has brought researchers from different nations together to create facilities that will accelerate the research and development process to create new health standards. The global health professionals are working together to contain Covid-19 and provide the right medical facilities for infected people. WHO has already created and activated an R&D Blueprint to form new diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics to deal with Covid-19. Each nation affected by a pandemic must receive the right access to health products and services.
According to the latest report by WHO, over 4 million new cases were reported in the last week of December 2020. Compared to the previous week, the last week of December saw a 12% decrease in the number, but this data still needs to be interpreted properly due to the holiday season. The death rate decreased by 8%. America accounts for 48% of the new cases, with 42% of all new deaths in the world. The European region also accounted for 37% of new cases and 42% of deaths. However, the pandemic situation seems more controlled in Europe compared to previous months. The South-East Asian region also experienced a decrease in new cases and deaths. However, the African region saw a 20% growth in the new cases, yet the new cases are low compared to other regions. The Western Pacific region experienced an increase of 13% in new cases and 4% in deaths. By the end of December, over 79.2 million cases were registered, with 1.7 million deaths since the beginning of Covid-19.
According to the report submitted in WHO, a variant of SARS-CoV02 has been detected in South Africa. The initial analysis suggested that the new variant, 501Y.V2, will spread faster between people. The research team is yet to announce whether the new infection will be any severe than the previous infection and whether the vaccines be completely effective.
Top Five Effective Countries in the Last Week of December 2020
- The United States of America remains the leading Covid-19 affected country with over 1.3 million cases but has seen a 19% decrease compared to the previous week.
- Brazil is the second most affected country with 285,000 cases, with a 12% decrease from the past week’s reports.
- The United Kingdom is the third most affected country alongside Northern Ireland, with over 251 000 cases and a 45% increase.
- The Russian Federation experienced 201 000 cases with a 3% increase from the previous week.
- India has experienced 156 000 new cases in the last week of December 2020, with a 10% decrease from the previous week.
Global Research Database
WHO is working on new research with the help of an international team to find information on Covid-19. The R&D department is busy gathering multilingual scientific findings and data for Coronavirus, with its database getting updated on a daily basis. The WHO retrieval subgroup has started collaborating with partners to enrich their database.