The latest data from the World Health Organization covering the four weeks to 17 December indicated a 52 per cent increase in infections compared with the previous 28-days.

That amounts to 850,000 new COVID-19 cases reported, but the true figure is likely much higher, according to WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier:

“You know that all throughout the world and you've seen it in many of your own countries, the reporting has dropped, the surveillance centers have dropped, the vaccination centers have dropped, have been dismantled as well or shut down,” he told reporters in Geneva.

“This, of course, leads to an incomplete picture and we should expect unfortunately more cases than we have officially reported.”

Most infections have been caused by a new COVID strain called JN.1 which is now under close scrutiny by the UN health agency as a “variant of interest”.

JN.1 was reportedly first detected in the United States before spreading across dozens of countries.

It evolved from the Omicron variant which was linked to a peak in COVID infections in 2022.