Geneva: The very contagious Delta variant of Covid-19 is expected to be a dominant strain of viruses over the coming months, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.
Delta, who was first detected in India, has now recorded in 124 regions – 13 more than last week – and has contributed more than three quarters of sequential specimens in many large countries, WHO said.
“It is expected that it will quickly compete with other variants and become the dominant circulating bloodline for the coming months,” the UN health agency said in its weekly epidemiological renewal.
Of the three concerning Coronavirus (VOC) variants, Alpha, first detected in the UK, have been reported in 180 regions (up six weeks ago), Beta, was first detected in South Africa, at 130 (up seven) and gamma, was first detected in Brazil, at 78 (up three).
According to the SARS-COV-2 sequence submitted to the Global Science Initiative line for four weeks until July 20, the prevalence of Delta exceeded 75 percent in several countries.
It includes Australia, Bangladesh, Botswana, England, China, Denmark, India, Indonesia, Israel, Portugal, Russia, Singapore and South Africa.
“Evidence that grows support the increased transmission of the Delta variant compared to non-VOC.
However, the right mechanism for increased transmission is still unclear,” WHO said.
Geneva-based organizations said overall, 3.4 million cases of new Covid-19 were reported on Sunday to July 18 – up 12 percent in the previous week.
“At this level, it is expected that the cumulative number of cases reported globally can exceed 200 million in the next three weeks,” WHO said.
The organization said the increase in global transmission seems to be driven by four factors: more transmitting variants; relaxation of public health measures; Increased social mixing and a large number of people who are not vaccinated.
Cases rose 30 percent at the WHO’s Western Pacific Region and up 21 percent in the European region.
The number of new cases was reported from Indonesia (3,50,273 new cases; rose 44 percent), England (2.96,447 new cases; rose 41 percent), and Brazil (2.87,610 new cases; fell 14 percent).
However, the number of weekly deaths remained stable at 57,000, similar to the previous week and followed a stable decline for more than two months.