Geneva (AP) A top World Health Organisation expert on the coronavirus pandemic said the weekly global count of deaths from COVID-19 is rising again, a “worrying sign” after about six weeks of decline. Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead on COVID-19 at the U.N. health agency, said on Monday that the growth followed a fifth straight week of confirmed cases increasing worldwide. She said the number of reported cases went up in four of the WHO’s six regions, though there were significant variations within each region. “In the last week, cases have increased by 8 per cent,” Van Kerkhove told reporters. “In Europe, that is 12 per cent — and that’s driven by several countries.” The increase is in part due to the spread of a variant that first emerged in Britain and is now circulating in many other places, including eastern Europe, she said..