Between the end of January and early March 2022, there was a decreasing trend in the number of new COVID-19 cases, which was followed by two consecutive weeks of increases in cases, Relief Web informed in its weekly epidemiological update.

During the week of 21 through 27 March 2022, the number of new cases declined again with a 14% decrease as compared to the previous week.

On the other hand, during the same period, the number of new weekly deaths increased by 43%, likely driven by changes in the definition of COVID-19 deaths in some countries in the Region of the Americas (Chile and the United States of America) and by retrospective adjustments reported from India in the South-East Asia Region.

Across the six World Health Organization regions, over 10 million new cases and over 45,000 new deaths were reported. All regions reported decreasing trends in the number of new weekly cases and four regions reported a decreasing trend in new weekly deaths. As of 27 March 2022, over 479 million confirmed cases and over 6 million deaths have been reported globally.