The number of weekly new COVID-19 infections has declined for the eighth straight seven-day period while deaths declined for the seventh week in a row, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported on Thursday, expressing worry that even so the toll remains high.

The WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom said in his Member State Information Session on COVID-19 that some 64,000 virus-related deaths were reported last week – that's six deaths every minute.

In the same period, more than 2.5 million new cases were registered globally.

Tedros singled out Africa, which recorded a nearly 40 percent increase in its number of cases and deaths. Some countries on the continent saw their numbers triple or quadruple.

"While a handful of countries have high vaccination rates and are now seeing lower numbers of hospitalizations and deaths, other countries in Africa, the Americas and Asia are now facing steep epidemics," the WHO chief said.

He attributed the situation in the latter regions to several reasons, including vaccine inequity, the spread of variants of concern, more social mixing and the ineffective use of public health and social measures.

"As high vaccination rates allow high-income countries to ease public health and social measures, most low-income countries still do not have enough vaccine to cover their most vulnerable and at-risk populations, let alone the rest of their populations," he said.

Tedros reiterated calls for the sharing of know-how, technology and licenses, and the waiving of intellectual property rights in efforts to boost the production of vaccines, which will in turn amplify the world's fight against the virus.