The World Health Organization says Japan reported the highest number of new COVID-19 cases of any country in the world during the week through Sunday. Japan had the highest number of new cases in the world for the third week in a row.

The WHO released its weekly update on coronavirus on Wednesday.

Globally, 6,980,516 new infections were confirmed during the week from August 1 to 7, up 3 percent from the previous week.

Japan reported 1,496,968 cases, up 9 percent from the previous week. Japan's weekly figure accounted for about 20 percent of the global total.

The country's weekly death toll during the same period was 1,002, up 53 percent from the previous week. The figure was the fourth-highest in the world, after the United States, Brazil, and Italy.

The WHO says the actual numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths may be higher than the reported figures as several countries have changed their testing strategies, resulting in lower overall numbers of tests performed.

The WHO also says BA.5 Omicron descendent lineages continue to be dominant globally, accounting for about 70 percent of cases detected across the world as of the end of last month.

BA.5 is reported to be driving the current surge of infections in Japan.