The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Wednesday to closely monitor the contagiousness of the AY.4.2 line of the Delta variant of the coronavirus, increasingly present in Covid-19 contaminations.

"An increase in the transmission of the AY.4.2 sequence has been observed since July," indicates the WHO in its weekly update on the pandemic.

The line has three more mutations than the original Delta variant, including two on the spike protein - the part of the virus that attaches to human cells.

A more contagious variant

AY.4.2 sequences have been uploaded to the GISAID global database from 43 countries. 93% were from the UK, where a gradual increase in the proportion of new cases is seen: this line accounted for 5.9% of all Delta variant cases reported in the UK during the week starting October 3. "Epidemiological and laboratory studies are underway" to establish whether AY.4.2 is more contagious or weakens antibodies, according to the WHO.

The Covid-19 pandemic has killed more than 4.96 million people since the virus was detected in China at the end of 2019, according to a report established from official sources.

In total, more than 244 million cases have been identified.

Last week, the number of new cases climbed 4% from the previous week, with 2.9 million new infections recorded.

Europe is the only region in the world to report an increase.

The total number of deaths increased by 5%, to more than 49,000 dead.

A first dose for almost half of the planet

Among the new contaminations, the proportion of those under 25 has been increasing since the beginning of July, in particular in Europe and in the western Pacific. The reason could be that older people are more vaccinated, that young people have more social contact, or that the virus is circulating in schools as face-to-face classes gradually resume, explains the WHO.

The organization has statistics according to the gender of the patients, covering only a part (123 million) of the identified cases of Covid.

Of these cases, 51% were women, but men account for 58% of deaths.

The death rate of people over 65 has also collapsed since September 2020, probably due to vaccination and better clinical management of patients, according to the WHO.

Today, 47% of the world population has received at least one dose of vaccine against Covid-19, specifies the WHO.

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