GENEVA, March 16. /TASS/. Over 11 mln people contracted the novel coronavirus infection worldwide over the past week, more than 43,000 patients died, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported on Wednesday.

The number of new infections increased by 8%, while the number of fatalities declined by 17% compared to the previous seven-day period.

At the same time, mortality continues to decline. The past seven days saw 17% less deaths than during the previous seven-day period.

According to the WHO COVID-19 Weekly Epidemiological Update, a total of 11,407,714 new cases and 43,097 deaths were reported to the global organization between February 28 and March 6.

The growth in cases was reported in the Western Pacific region (up 29%), Africa (up 12%) and Europe (up 2%). In the remaining three WHO regions, cases have declined.

Mortality grew in Western Pacific (up 12%), but declined in all other regions, most noticeably in Eastern Mediterranean (down 49%) and Africa (down 41%). Europe saw the decline of 23%, America - of 15%.

Europe accounts for 44% of all new cases registered worldwide in the past week.

The biggest number of infections was reported by the Republic of Korea (2,100,171), followed by Vietnam (1,670,627), Germany (1,350,362), the Netherlands (475,290) and France (419,632). The United States accounts for the majority of coronavirus-related deaths between February 28 and March 6 (9,078), followed by Russia (4,530), Brazil (3,301), Indonesia (1,994) and China (1,955).

As of 19:56 Moscow time on March 15, the WHO cumulative global statistics indicated 458,479,635 cases and 6,047,653 fatalities worldwide. The number of new cases grew by 1,413,309 in the past day, while fatalities increased by 3,805.