Coronavirus surges, driven in part by the Delta variant, are pushing health systems of some western Pacific countries "dangerously close" to a "red line", the World Health Organization says.
That line exists where the number of critical cases exceeds ICU capacity in hospitals, WHO regional director Takeshi Kasai said during an online news conference on Wednesday.
"Getting priority populations especially health workers and older people and then whole communities vaccinated as quickly as possible is crucial," Mr Kasai said.
The WHO reported that in the first three weeks of August, there was a reported jump from the original two per cent to the current 10 per cent of global cases coming from the western Pacific region.
In its weekly assessment of the pandemic, the UN health agency also said on Tuesday COVID-19 increased by about 20 per cent in the western Pacific.
The region includes 37 territories ranging from Australia and New Zealand to the Philippines, Japan, China and South Korea.
Over six million people across the region have been infected with coronavirus and over 82,000 have died, with Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia having the highest number of cases, it said.
The number of new coronavirus cases reported globally appears to be stabilising at about 4.5 million infections after steadily rising for the past two months, according to the WHO.
