Weekly epidemiological update on COVID-19 - 17 August 2023

Overview

In the last 28-day period (17 July to 13 August 2023), over 1.4 million new COVID-19 cases and over 2300 deaths were reported from WHO’s six regions, an increase of 63% and a decrease of 56%, respectively, compared to the previous 28 days. As of 13 August 2023, over 769 million confirmed cases and over 6.9 million deaths have been reported globally. While four WHO regions have reported decreases in the number of both cases and deaths, the Western Pacific Region has reported an increase in cases and a decrease in deaths. In the context of high variability in the timeliness of COVID-19 reports produced by Member States in the Americas, as of August 2023 PAHO/WHO has paused its specific COVID-19 Epidemiological Update. Subsequent COVID-19 surveillance will continue through the Influenza ad Other Respiratory Viruses bulletin and dashboards available here: https://www.paho.org/en/topics/influenza-and-other-respiratory-viruses. Currently, reported cases do not accurately represent infection rates due to the reduction in testing and reporting globally. During this 28-day period, 44% (104 of 234) of countries reported at least one case to WHO – a proportion that has been declining since mid-2022.  

In this edition, we include:

• The COVID-19 epidemiological update at the global and the regional levels
• An update on hospitalizations and ICU admissions
• An update on the SARS-CoV-2 variants of interest (VOI) and variants under monitoring (VUM)