ROME, July 30 (Xinhua) -- The number of coronavirus infections is on the rise in three-quarters of Italy's regions, according to a research paper released Thursday by the GIMBE Foundation, with the country as a whole seeing a net week-by-week rise in infections for the first time since April.

The GIMBE Foundation, a health sector observatory, analyzed the official Ministry of Health data to show that for the week of July 22-28 there were 1,736 coronavirus infections, a 23-percent increase compared to the previous week's total of 1,408. The report said that infections were on the rise in 15 of Italy's 20 regions.

The overall figures are still very low compared to March and April when Italy was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. During that period, there were some weeks when the country saw more than 25,000 infections.

GIMBE Foundation President Nino Cartabellotta said in a statement that the latest increase should act as a warning to Italians.

"This confirms the need to keep up our guard, not with alarmism but with a great sense of individual and collective responsibility," Cartabellotta said.

Other data on the coronavirus outbreak were more positive. According to the GIMBE Foundation's research, during the week in question the number of people in Italy who died of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, rose by less than 1 percent, while the number of intensive-care-unit patients fell by 18 percent. The number of coronavirus tests increased by 10 percent to 17,859.

GIMBE is a private law foundation established by the Italian Group for Evidence Based Medicine association in 2010.