The Corona pandemic has remained a serious health risk globally for more than four years. Corona cases were stable earlier this year, however, due to new variants, a jump in infection cases is being seen once again. According to recent reports, many countries including America, Singapore, and India are currently in the grip of the new variant of Corona, FLiRT (KP.1 and KP.2). Singapore is currently the worst affected country by the new Corona variant, where a jump of more than 90 percent in infection cases has been reported within 15 days.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has expressed concern about the new variants of Corona. The new variant FLiRT has been classified as a 'Variant Under Monitoring'. The WHO said the Covid-19 pandemic is hurting global health in many ways. The pandemic that has spread across the world has not only increased many serious diseases but has also reduced life expectancy. For example, the pandemic has ruined all the hard work done in the health sector for years.

Decrease in life expectancy
The World Health Organization has expressed concern in its recent report about the decrease in life expectancy due to the pandemic. In the report, the WHO said that global life expectancy has decreased by about two years due to COVID-19. Life expectancy is an estimate of the average number of additional years that a person of a certain age can expect to live.

Global life expectancy has now fallen by 1.8 years to 71.4 years due to COVID-19. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that these figures highlight the importance of strengthening global health security and promoting long-term investment in the health sector.

The situation worsened in the first two years
The WHO Director-General said that in just the first two years of the pandemic, the coronavirus has affected a decade's gain in life expectancy. Compared to earlier, the number of patients with non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as ischemic heart disease and stroke, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Alzheimer's disease-dementia, and diabetes has also increased, which is believed to increase the risk of premature death. The disturbances in lifestyle and diet during the epidemic have also increased the risk of many types of health conditions which are considered to be the main factor in chronic diseases.

Corona figures so far

More than four years have passed since the coronavirus epidemic started in December 2019. According to the information shared by Worldometer till 13 April 2024, officially 70.47 crore people have been affected by this virus so far, while 70.10 lakh people have died from it. 67.56 crore people have been infected and have also recovered. The United States has been the worst affected country by the coronavirus, where 11.18 crore cases were reported. The number of coronavirus deaths in the US has been reported to be 1219,487.

Corona figures in India

According to Worldometer data, India is the second most affected country by corona in the world. So far, 45,035,393 people have been identified with the infection while the death toll was more than 5.33 lakh. The top five countries most affected by coronavirus include America, India, France, Germany and Brazil.

Experts from the World Health Organization have advised all people to keep making continuous efforts to prevent corona.

(PC: ISTOCK)