GENEVA, September 7. /TASS/. Nearly 4.2 million people have been infected with novel coronavirus worldwide over the past week, and more than 13,000 patients died, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported on Wednesday.

COVID-19 case and death rates have decreased by 12% and 5% respectively, compared with the previous seven days, the WHO added.

"Globally, the number of weekly cases decreased by 12% during the week of 29 August to 4 September 2022 as compared to the previous week," the weekly epidemiological update on COVID-19 reads adding, "The number of new weekly deaths decreased by 5% as compared to the previous week." The WHO was informed about 4,199,352 new weekly cases and 13,716 fatalities.

The most significant decline in the number of cases was reported in the Eastern Mediterranean (down 29%), Southeast Asia (down 22%), and Europe (down 15%). Mortality rates have drastically dropped in Southeast Asia (down 24%) and Europe (down 22%), whereas the number of fatalities have grown in Africa (up 14%), America (up 6%) and the Western Pacific (up 5%).

According to the WHO, Japan reported the biggest number of cases in the past seven days (1,164,787), followed by the United States (586,509), South Korea (585,374), Russia (323,500) and China (238,044). The US accounted for the highest number of deaths (3,558) in the past seven days, followed by Japan (2,059), Brazil (865), Russia (628), and South Korea (524), the newsletter said.

As of September 6, the WHO cumulative global statistics indicated 603,164,436 cases and 6,482,338 deaths worldwide.