The World Health Organization said Monday it has observed a slight slowdown in new cases of the coronavirus infection worldwide for the third week in a row.

WHO Director General – Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during the agency’s briefing in Geneva said although there are still many countries where the number of cases is increasing, at the global level, the figure is encouraging.

According to Ghebreyesus, the result shows that "this virus can be controlled, even with the new variants in circulation.

The agency also launched The SCORE global report, 2020, the first ever global assessment on the capacity of health information systems in 133 countries, covering 87% of the world’s population.

The report says while much progress has been made, many countries are still insufficiently resourced and critical data are lacking to monitor progress towards the health-related SDGs and WHO’s Triple Billion targets.