New Delhi: The new Coronavirus variant omicron has so far been found in 57 countries, the World Health Organization said, warning that the rate of hospitalisation resulting from infection is likely to rise.
The WHO said it needed more data to evaluate the severity of the disease caused by the new variant.
"Even if the severity is equal or potentially even lower than for delta variant, it is expected that hospitalizations will increase if more people become infected and that there will be a time lag between an increase in the incidence of cases and an increase in the incidence of deaths," it said.
In an interview with the AFP news agency on Tuesday, the WHO's Director of Health Emergencies Michael Ryan said it was "highly unlikely" that the new variant dodged vaccine protections entirely.
However, he cautioned against drawing full-fledged conclusions from preliminary data and said that health authorities needed to be careful about how they interpreted the data they received so far.
With 8,439 more people testing positive for COVID-19 in a day, India's infection tally rose to 3,46,56,822 on Wednesday, while the count of active cases declined to 93,733, the lowest in 555 days, according to the Union Health Ministry data.
The death toll due to the disease has climbed to 4,73,952, with 195 daily fatalities being recorded, the data updated at 8 am showed.
The daily rise in new Coronavirus infections has been recorded below 10,000 for 12 straight days and less than 50,000 for 164 consecutive days now.
The active cases count has declined to 93,733, comprising 0.27 per cent of the total infections, the lowest since March 2020. The national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.36 per cent, the highest since March 2020, the ministry said.
A decrease of 1,281 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours, the data showed.
The daily positivity rate was recorded at 0.70 per cent. It has been less than two per cent for the last 65 days. The weekly positivity rate was recorded at 0.76 per cent. This has been below one per cent for the last 24 days, according to the health ministry.
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease has surged to 3,40,89,137, while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.37 per cent, the data showed.
The cumulative number of doses administered in the country so far under the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive has exceeded 129.54 crore.