The novel coronavirus has killed at least 4,992,831 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT on Sunday.
At least 246,316,520 cases of coronavirus have been registered.
The vast majority have recovered, though some have continued to experience symptoms weeks or even months later.
The figures are based on daily reports provided by health authorities in each country.
They exclude revisions made by other statistical organisations, which show that the number of deaths is much higher.
The World Health Organisation estimates that the pandemic’s overall toll could be two to three times higher than official records, due to the excess mortality that is directly and indirectly linked to COVI-19.
A large number of the less severe or asymptomatic cases also remain undetected, despite intensified testing in many countries.
On Saturday, 6,238 new deaths and 399,027 new cases were recorded worldwide.
Based on the latest reports, the countries with the highest number of new deaths were Russia with 1,158, followed by India with 446 and Romania with 413.
The United States is the worst-affected country with 745,670 deaths from 45,953,780 cases.
After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 607,694 deaths from 21,804,094 cases, India with 458,186 deaths from 34,273,300 cases, Mexico with 288,276 deaths from 3,805,765 cases, and Russia with 238,538 deaths from 8,513,790 cases.
The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Peru with 607 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Bosnia-Herzegovina with 350, Bulgaria with 344, the Republic of North Macedonia with 342, Montenegro with 334, and Hungary with 318.
Latin America and the Caribbean overall has 1,520,594 deaths from 45,910,865 cases, Europe 1,397,748 deaths from 74,243,239 infections, and Asia 870,642 deaths from 55,821,205 cases.
The United States and Canada have reported 774,622 deaths from 47,665,908 cases, Africa 218,102 deaths from 8,498,740 cases, the Middle East 208,332 deaths from 13,919,855 cases, and Oceania 2,791 deaths from 256,714 cases.
As a result of corrections by national authorities or late publication of data, the figures updated over the past 24 hours may not correspond exactly to the previous day’s tallies.
(AFP)
