HIGHLIGHTS
• With funds from the ACT-A Humanitarian Action for Children (HAC) appeal, in Q3 2022, UNICEF:
• Disbursed US$77 million to support vaccine delivery across 54 countries, helping to turn vaccines into vaccinations, including in 27 priority countries of the COVID-19 vaccine delivery partnership.
• Delivered more than 600,000 COVID-19 diagnostics tests to five countries that are responding to humanitarian situations.
• Delivered 44,172 treatment courses of molnupiravir antiviral medication to Cambodia, Indonesia and Zimbabwe.
• Provided ongoing supply and technical support for the implementation of 98 oxygen plants in 32 countries across 7 regions.
• Shipped 19.94 million items of personal protective equipment (PPE) to 22 countries responding to emergencies with Humanitarian Response Plans.
• Provided ongoing support to 133 countries to roll-out risk communication and community engagement (RCCE) and promote trust in COVID-19 tools, including the integration of COVID-19 vaccination with other routine immunization globally.
SITUATION OVERVIEW AND HUMANITARIAN NEEDS
Globally, the number of weekly new cases of COVID-19 increased in July 2022, after a declining trend following a peak in March 2022. The number of new weekly cases and deaths started to decrease again in August and September, with over 3 million new cases reported in the last week of September (Figure 1, Table 1), compared with 6.6 million new cases reported the week of 18 to 24 July 2022. As of 25 September 2022, over 612 million confirmed cases and over 6.5 million deaths have been reported globally. At the regional level, the number of newly reported weekly cases decreased or remained stable across all regions. However, the change in testing strategies across the world has made it difficult to assess current trends, as lower overall numbers of tests performed has led to fewer cases detected.
From 26 August to 26 September 2022, there were 106,735 SARS-CoV-2 sequences shared through the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data. Among these, 106,686 sequences were the Omicron variant of concern, accounting for 99.9 per cent of sequences reported globally in the past 30 days. There continued to be increased diversity within Omicron and its descendent lineages. A number of these Omicron descendent lineages are under monitoring. As of 11 September, BA.5 descendent lineages continued to be dominant, followed by BA.4 and BA.2 descendent lineages.

Source: UN Children’s Fund