WHO says global COVID numbers falling, Delta variant ‘dominant strain’

The World Health Organisation (WHO) in its weekly epidemiological update on Tuesday said that the Delta COVID-19 variant is the current dominant strain of the coronavirus. Its presence has been reported in 185 countries as of September 21. 

“The Delta variant now accounted for 90% of the sequences submitted to GISAID with a sample collection date (between 15 June-15 September, 2021),” WHO said .

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Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID) is a global science initiative and primary source established in 2008 that provides open-access to genomic data of influenza viruses and the coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Less than one per cent each of Alpha, Beta and Gamma are currently circulating. It’s really predominantly Delta around the world,” Maria Van Kerkhove,” the WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19 said.

The global health agency also said that the number of fresh COVID-19 cases continued to fall last week, with 3.6 million new cases reported globally, down from 4 million new infections the previous week. 

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 WHO said there were major decreases in cases in two regions: a 22% fall in the Middle East and a 16% drop in Southeast Asia. It further added that there were just under 60,000 deaths in the past week, a 7% decline. It said that while Southeast Asia reported a 30% decrease in COVID-19 deaths, the Western Pacific region reported a 7% increase.