GENEVA — The COVID-19 case tally worldwide grew by nearly 5 million this past week, a new high since the start of the pandemic, and the death toll rose by over 85,000, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in its weekly bulletin on Wednesday according to Russian News Agency (TASS). On Jan. 4-10, as many as 4,953,758 new coronavirus cases and 85,436 deaths were registered globally. Last time, a record high number of 4,612,790 COVID-19 cases over seven days was recorded on Dec. 14-20. Last week saw a trend towards a growing incidence rate. The number of new COVID-19 cases and fatalities increased 20% and 11%, respectively, versus the previous seven days. In North and South America, more than 2.5 million people contracted the coronavirus (a 30% growth) and over 38,000 people died (a 18% growth). In Europe, more than 1.8 million coronavirus cases and over 36,000 deaths were recorded. An increase in cases was also registered in the Western Pacific (36%), Africa (34%) and the Eastern Mediterranean (11%). More than 1.7 million new COVID-19 cases were confirmed in the past week in the United States, which is followed by the United Kingdom (over 417,000), Brazil (over 313,000), Russia (over 165,000), Germany (over 142,000) and India (over 126,000). — SPA