Over 62 million COVID cases reported in Americas in last 15 months: WHO

More than 62 million Covid-19 cases and over 1.5 million deaths have been reported in the region of the Americas, combining North, South and Central America, in the last 15 months, a representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

"At this moment, most of the countries in South America ... are reporting increasing trends ... And in many of these countries, ICUs (intensive care units) are overwhelmed with severe patients," Sylvain Aldighieri, Deputy Director of the Pan American Health Organization, WHO's Regional Office for the Americas, told a virtual press conference on Friday.

According to the latest WHO statistics, the Americas currently tops all six WHO regions in both cumulative Covid-19 infections and deaths, accounting for over 40 per cent of global confirmed cases and more than 47 per cent of global deaths, the Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday.

The WHO said on Wednesday that 1.4 million new cases were found in the Americas last week. Brazil reported the highest number of deaths in the region, with 17,667 new deaths in the past week.

Brazil's Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga told the press conference that the country's priority is the vaccination campaign.

The Brazilian president has also allocated more than 3 billion reals ($555 million) "so that we can buy (more) doses (of vaccine)," he said.

"By Monday, we will have administered more than 16 million doses of vaccinations against Covid-19," said the minister.