COVID-19 cases are rising across the world as the highly transmissible BA.5 subvariant of Omicron spreads at a “very intense level,” the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.
At a news conference on Tuesday, the WHO chief said subvariants of Omicron, like BA.4 and BA.5, continue to drive waves of new cases, hospitalizations and deaths around the world. Read more: New COVID-19 Omicron mutation sparks concern in India and beyond “The virus is running freely and countries are not effectively managing the disease burden,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom told a virtual press conference from Geneva, Switzerland. “New waves of the virus demonstrate again that COVID-19 is nowhere near over,” he added.
The spread of BA.5, which is now the dominant version of the virus globally, is of concern because it has a growth advantage over other sublineages of Omicron, said WHO COVID-19 technical lead Dr.
Maria Van Kerkhove. “The virus is spreading at a very intense level at a global level and our ability to detect cases has reduced since the surveillance strategies have changed,” she told reporters.