Coronavirus cases rising in Kazakhstan and globally

The number of weekly cases has increased for the fifth consecutive week, after a declining trend since the last peak in March 2022. Between July 4 and July 10, over 5.7 million new cases were reported. The number of new weekly deaths reached 9,800 fatalities.

«At the regional level, the number of new weekly cases increased in the Western Pacific Region (+28 percent), the Eastern Mediterranean Region (+25 percent), the South-East Asia Region (+5 percent), while it decreased in the African Region (-33 percent) and remained similar to last week’s numbers in the European Region (+4 percent) and the Region of the Americas (-1 percent). The number of weekly deaths increased in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (+78 percent) and the South-East Asia Region (+23 percent), while it decreased in the African Region (-17 percent) and the Western Pacific Region (-10 percent). The Region of the Americas and the European Region both reported similar figures as compared to the previous week,» said the report.

As of July 10, 553 million confirmed cases and over 6.3 million deaths have been reported globally. WHO warns countries to reconsider their COVID-19 testing strategies carefully, after some countries have changed their testing strategies, which, in turn, led to lower overall numbers of tests and consequently lower numbers of cases detected.

The highest number of weekly cases was reported in France up by 771,260 new cases, the United States up by 722,924 new cases, Italy up by 661,984 new cases, Germany up by 561,136 new cases, and Brazil up by 396,781 new cases. The highest number of new weekly deaths was in the US – 1,987 new deaths, Brazil - 1,639 new deaths, China - 692 new

Deaths, Spain - 619 new deaths and Italy - 574 new deaths.

At the press briefing on July 12, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the COVID-19 pandemic is nowhere near over. He expressed concern over the rising cases globally that put a significant strain on the countries’ healthcare systems and healthcare workers.

He spoke about the several interlinked challenges that the WHO Emergency Committee outlined during their meeting on July 8.

«First, sub-variants of Omicron, like BA.4 and BA.5, continue to drive waves of cases, hospitalization and death around the world. Second, surveillance has reduced significantly – including testing and sequencing – making it increasingly difficult to assess the impact of variants on transmission, disease characteristics, and the effectiveness of counter-measures. Third, diagnostics, treatments and vaccines are not being deployed effectively. Finally, there is a major disconnect in COVID-19 risk perception between scientific communities, political leaders and the general public,» said the WHO chief.

The virus continues to spread freely, while countries fail to effectively manage the infection burden based on their healthcare capacity, including both hospitalization for acute cases and the expanding number of people with the post-COVID-19 condition, more known as long-term COVID.

The world is in a better position now in terms of its capacity to curb the spread of the virus, but it should not be taken for granted. The virus continues to mutate and demonstrates that the pandemic is not over.

«This is a dual challenge of communicating risk and building community trust in health tools and public health social measures like masking, distancing and ventilation,» said WHO Director-General.

He urged that healthcare tools must be accessible to all countries, including vaccines.

«Planning and tackling COVID-19 should also go hand-in-hand with vaccinating for killer diseases like measles, pneumonia and diarrhea. It’s not a question of either/or, it’s possible to do both. And new vaccines, including HPV and malaria, should continue to be introduced,» he told the journalists.

At the moment, 66.7 percent of the world population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. 12.21 billion doses have been administered globally, and 5.73 million are now administered each day with a staggering gap between rich and poor countries.

Epidemiological situation in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan is no exception where the number of cases in one week increased by 2.5 times, said Kazakhstan’s Minister of Health Azhar Giniyat at a briefing at the Central Communications Service on July 15.

«Along with the increase of morbidity in the world and in Kazakhstan since June 20, an increase of COVID morbidity is observed. For the last week in comparison with the previous week morbidity increased by 2.5 times - from 1,030 to 2,558 cases. Over one day, there are up to 1,300 cases of coronavirus infection and up to 15 cases of coronavirus pneumonia,» said the minister.

Kazakhstan’s largest cities Almaty and Nur-Sultan account for 70 percent of the cases, driven by the circulation of new variants. According to Giniyat, 70 percent of samples belong to the Omicron BA.5, the remaining 30 percent are characteristic of BA.2 variant, also known as stealth omicron.

Giniyat noted despite the rise in the incidence, the level of hospitalization remains low. As of July 15, 139 infectious diseases hospitals with a capacity of 3,282 beds are providing inpatient care nationwide. 570 patients have been hospitalized and the occupancy rate is 20 percent or 570 beds from a total of 2,817 beds.

«An analysis of patients in inpatient care was conducted. Children under 18 years of age accounted for 41.7 percent of inpatients with coronavirus, including 23 percent under 1 year of age. Adult patients accounted for 58.3 percent. Patients with various comorbidities accounted for 23 percent,» she said, noting that people over 50 years old are at a greater risk.

At least 18 patients are in the intensive care unit, and the majority of them are in Nur-Sultan (11 patients).

The ministry has also revised the epidemiological situation assessment matrix taking into account WHO recommendations and international experience and replacing morbidity indicators with hospitalization indicators.

According to the new criteria, the green zone is when the number of occupied beds is up to 2, 500 patients when the number of occupied beds is up to 5,000 patients and the indicator of reproductive number R0, a mathematical term that indicates how contagious an infectious disease is, is less than 1.

The yellow zone is when bed occupancy is up to 5,000 patients and R0 is more than 1, bed occupancy from 5,000 to 10,000 patients and R0 is less than 1.

The red zone is when bed occupancy exceeds 5,000 patients and R0 is greater than 1 with bed occupancy greater than 10,000 patients regardless of R.

»In the transition to the red zone in the regions, in addition to the measures taken in the yellow zone, measures will be taken to restrict the movement of the population and activities of business entities in two stages, depending on the load on the hospital and primary health care. The proposals for measures will be submitted for consideration by the interdepartmental commission,« the minister said.

She urged the citizens to vaccinate and revaccinate. In the example of the cities of Almaty and Nur-Sultan, 80 percent of the patients are unvaccinated persons or were vaccinated 6 months ago.

At present, there are three types of vaccines in Kazakhstan - QazVac, Sinopharm and Pfizer. As of today, more than 80 percent of the adult population, or more than 56 percent of the total population of the country, is vaccinated against COVID-19.

More than 10.7 million people have been vaccinated with the first component and 10.4 million with the second dose, with over 5,000 people vaccinated daily.

Written by Assel Satubaldina