The novel coronavirus has killed at least 5,165,289 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT on Wednesday.
At least 258,299,880 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 COVID-19.
A large number of the less severe or asymptomatic cases also remain undetected, despite intensified testing in many countries.
On Tuesday, 8,499 new deaths and 763,521 new cases were recorded worldwide.
Based on the latest reports, the countries with the highest figures for new deaths were Russia with 1,240, followed by the United States with 1,183 and Ukraine with 595.
The United States is the worst-affected country with 773,857 deaths from 47,982,843 cases.
After the United States, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 613,066 deaths from 22,030,182 cases, India with 466,584 deaths from 34,535,763 cases, Mexico with 292,850 deaths from 3,867,976 cases, and Russia with 267,819 deaths from 9,434,393 cases.
The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Peru with 609 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Bulgaria with 396, Bosnia with 376, Montenegro with 360, North Macedonia with 358, Hungary with 345 and the Czech Republic with 303.
Latin America and the Caribbean overall has 1,536,155 deaths from 46,506,386 cases, Europe 1,495,319 deaths from 81,955,159 infections, and Asia 891,837 deaths from 56,932,896 cases.
The United States and Canada have reported 803,394 deaths from 49,754,305 cases, Africa 221,868 deaths from 8,610,351 cases, the Middle East 213,466 deaths from 14,241,215 cases, and Oceania 3,250 deaths from 299,572 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)
