GENEVA, June 16. /TASS/. Over 2.6 million novel coronavirus cases and over 72,000 deaths were registered worldwide in the past week, the World Health Organization (WHO) said a weekly bulletin released in Geneva early on Wednesday. 

"Global numbers of cases and deaths continued to decrease over the past week (7-13 June 2021) with over 2.6 million new weekly cases and over 72,000 deaths, a 12% and a 2% decrease respectively, compared to the previous week," the global organization said in its COVID-19 Weekly Epidemiological Update. 

On June 7-13, the global organization was informed about 2,655,782 new cases all over the world and 72,528 COVID-related deaths. As of June 13, a total of 175,333,154 cases of the infection and 3,793,230 COVID-related fatalities have been reported worldwide.

Last week, case incidence declined in five out of six WHO regions, including Southeast Asia (down 27%) and Europe (down 13%). At the same time, Africa reported a 44-percent increase in cases. Mortality increased in Africa (up 20%) and Southeast Asia (up 12%) but declined in Europe (down 17%) and North and South America (down 7%).

In the past seven days, over 332,000 people contracted the infection in Europe, over 7,000 patients died. The number of cases in North and South America increased by over 1.1 million in the reported period, while fatalities grew by 31,000. In Southeast Asia, doctors registered over 763,000 new cases of the novel coronavirus, over 26,000 patients died.

India accounts for the majority of cases registered in the past week (over 613,000 cases), followed by Brazil (over 454,000), Argentina (over 177,000), Colombia (over 176,000), the United States (over 105,000), Russia (over 82,000), Iran (over 59,000), Indonesia (over 55,000), Chile (over 48,000), South Africa (over 47,000), the United Kingdom (over 46,000), and Turkey (over 42,000).

According to the WHO, several strains of the novel coronavirus with the VOC (variants of concern) status continue to spread all over the world. For example, the Alpha variant first detected in the UK in September 2020 is now present in 172 countries. The Gamma variant, first registered in Brazil in September, has spread to 68 states. The number of countries affected by the Delta strain, uncovered by virologists in India in October 2020, has risen to 80.