Contributed by Nebojsa Nikolic (Non-Governmental Organizations [NGO’s])
Globally, as of 12:20pm CEST, 30 August 2023, there have been 770,085,713 confirmed cases of coronavirus disease
2019 (COVID-19), including 6,956,173 deaths, reported to the World Health Organization (WHO). As of 20 August 2023,
a total of 13,499,865,692 vaccine doses have been administered.
On WHO press conference on global health issues held on 9 August 2023, Secretary General of WHO, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reported that since May 5th 2023, when an end to COVID-19 as a global health emergency has been
declared, the number of reported cases, hospitalisations and deaths globally has continued to decline.
However, he emphasized that the number of countries reporting data to WHO has also declined significantly. In the past
month, only 25% of countries and territories have reported COVID-19 deaths to WHO, and only 11% have reported hospitalisations and intensive care unit admissions. This doesn’t mean that other countries don’t have deaths or hospitalisations,
it means they are not reporting them to WHO.
There is no question that the risk of severe disease and death is vastly lower than it was a year ago, thanks to increasing
population immunity from vaccination, infection or both, and from early diagnosis with better clinical care. Despite these
improvements, WHO continues to assess the risk of COVID-19 to the global public as high.
The virus continues to circulate in all countries, continues to kill and it continues to change. WHO is currently tracking
several variants including EG.5. The risk remains of a more dangerous variant emerging that could cause a sudden increase
in cases and deaths.
Starting from the week of 7 August 2023, the Region of the Americas has paused its specific COVID-19 Epidemiological Update. Subsequent COVID-19 surveillance will continue through the Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses bulletin
and dashboards available here: https://www.paho.org/en/topics/influenza-and-other-respiratory-viruses.