A citizen receives a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac in Bangkok, Thailand, May 12, 2021. (Xinhua/Rachen Sageamsak)
BEIJING, May 13 -- The COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage across the world with some countries bracing for fresh surges of confirmed cases. Yet vaccination worldwide has been picking up as more countries witness the Chinese vaccines showing high efficacy.
GLOBAL CASELOADS CLIMB UP
Asia-Pacific countries have witnessed various increases in both cases and deaths. India's coronavirus death toll crossed the 250,000 mark, and Thailand reported a new daily record of 34 COVID-19 fatalities.
India registered as many as 4,205 deaths, the highest so far, during the past 24 hours, with 348,421 new cases, taking the total to 23,340,938, confirmed the federal health ministry.
There are still 3,704,099 active cases in the country, with a decrease of 11,122 in the past 24 hours. This is the second consecutive day of falling active cases.
The Philippines has been battling one of the worst outbreaks in Asia. The country's Department of Health reported 4,842 new COVID-19 infections, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the Southeast Asian country to 1,118,359. The death toll climbed to 18,714 after 94 more patients died from the viral disease, the department said.
The number of patients designated as having severe symptoms as a result of COVID-19 in Japan reached a fresh record high of 1,189, rising by 13 compared to the previous day's record, the health ministry said.
The latest data regarding critically ill patients who typically require hospitalization and the assistance of ventilators or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machines have more than tripled over the past month, according to the ministry.
In the Middle East, Iran reported on Wednesday 16,409 new coronavirus cases, raising the country's caseload to 2,707,761. The pandemic has so far claimed 75,934 lives in Iran, up by 366 in the past 24 hours, the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education said in a written briefing published on its official website.
Meanwhile, Turkey will gradually ease lockdown restrictions after the Eid al-Fitr festival that marks the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced a lockdown ease in a video speech for the occasion of Eid al-Fitr.
"Having taken the pandemic under control, we will take normalization steps in a controlled manner after the fest," Erdogan said.
