The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Tuesday announced that half a million COVID-19 deaths had been recorded across the world since the discovery of the Omicron variant.

Addressing a media briefing, Abdi Mahamud, WHO Incident Manager of the COVID-19 Incident Management Support Team, underlined that 130 million infections and 500,000 deaths had been recorded worldwide since the authorities declared Omicron a variant of concern in late November.

Since its inception, the Omicron variant has rapidly overtaken the Delta variant of COVID-19 as the dominant variant globally. According to studies, the Omicron variant is more transmissible even as it may cause less severe illness.

Furthermore, Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO's Technical Lead on COVID-19, expressed concerns over the reported number of Omicron cases, noting that the true number of infections and deaths could be much higher than just those known about.

Since December 2019 when COVID-19 was first identified by health authorities, the virus has killed nearly 5.75 million people in countries across the world.

SOURCE : WAM

LINK: https://www.wam.ae/en/details/1395303019256