MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Fifth wave of COVID-19 reported having started in Paraguay

Sequera urged Paraguayans to update their vaccination schemes to avoid the spread of the disease

Paraguayan health authorities Friday reported the beginning of the fifth wave of COVID-19 in the country, where 621 new cases have been confirmed.

 Epidemiological Surveillance Director Guillermo Sequera said in a press conference that at least one person had died recently from causes associated with the disease and warned that the trend in infections was going up with 44 patients currently hospitalized. Hence, the population should take a vaccine or update their immunization scheme.

Paraguay's Health Ministry Friday reported 621 new infections during the 47th epidemiological week, with an upward trend, so this represents the beginning of the fifth wave of cases.

Sequera also pointed out that the virus variant currently circulating was milder than the ones in past waves and therefore fewer severe cases are expected, although vaccination was advised to avoid the spread of the disease, as well as complications.

Last week, 7,484 samples were processed for a total of 621 detections for an accumulated number of cases reaching 777,525, including 19,630 deaths since the onset of the pandemic.

Meanwhile, World Health Organization (WHO) Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that over 8,500 COVID-19 deaths were recorded last week, while at least 90 % of the world's population was somehow immune to the virus.

“WHO estimates that at least 90 percent of the world's population currently has some level of immunity to SARS CoV-2 due to previous infection or vaccination,” stressed Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The Ethiopian expert also admitted that the number of weekly deaths represented a slight decrease. “We cannot be sure that the emergency phase of this pandemic is behind us. We expected it, but so far it has not happened,” he said. He also pointed out there were conditions that favor the appearance of new variants of which over 500 sub-variants are circulating. He also recognized that mortality has been reduced by 90 % since February. “We are much closer to being able to say that the emergency phase of the pandemic is over, but we are not there yet,” he said.