ReliefWeb

Global overview
Data as of 17 October 2021

With just over 2.7 million new cases and over 46 000 new deaths reported during the week of 11 to 17 October 2021, the global number of new cases and deaths remained similar to that of the previous week (Figure 1). Apart from the European Region, which reported a 7% increase in the number of new weekly cases when as compared to the previous week, all the other regions reported declines in new weekly cases (Table 1). The largest decrease in new weekly cases was reported from the African Region (18%), followed by the Western Pacific Region (16%). The cumulative number of confirmed cases reported globally is now over 240 million and the cumulative number of deaths is just under 4.9 million.

The African Region also reported the largest decline in weekly deaths (25%) followed by the South-East Asia and Eastern Mediterranean Regions with 19% and 8% declines, respectively. All other regions reported new deaths in numbers similar to those of the previous week.

The regions reporting the highest weekly case incidence rates per 100 000 population were the European Region (145.6 new cases per 100 000 population) and the Region of the Americas (79.9 new cases per 100 000 population); the same two regions reported the highest weekly incidence in deaths, of 1.9 and 1.8 per 100 000 population, respectively.

The highest numbers of new cases were reported from the United States of America (582 707 new cases; 11% decrease), the United Kingdom (283 756 new cases; 14% increase), the Russian Federation (217 322 new cases; 15% increase), Turkey (213 981 new cases; similar to the number reported in the previous week) and India (114 244 new cases; 18% decrease).

Globally, three additional countries, territories or areas (hereafter countries) reported cases with VOCs in the past week. As of 19 October, cases of Alpha variant have been reported from 196 countries (one new country added), Beta variant from 145 countries (no new country added), Gamma variant from 99 countries, and Delta variant from 193 countries (two new countries added) across all six WHO regions.