The novel coronavirus has killed at least 4,656,833 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1000 GMT on Thursday.
At least 226,310,920 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 Wednesday, 10,274 new deaths and 564,728 new cases were recorded worldwide.
Based on the latest reports, the countries with the highest figures for new deaths were the United States with 2,641, followed by Mexico with 897 and Brazil with 800.
The United States is the worst-affected country with 666,618 deaths from 41,536,687 cases.
After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 588,597 deaths from 21,034,610 cases, India with 443,928 deaths from 33,347,325 cases, Mexico with 269,913 deaths from 3,542,189 cases, and Peru with 198,860 deaths from 2,163,312 cases.
The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Peru with 603 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Hungary with 312, Bosnia-Herzegovina with 309, the Republic of North Macedonia with 304, Montenegro with 289, and Bulgaria with 284.
Latin America and the Caribbean overall has 1,467,379 deaths from 44,101,105 cases, Europe 1,280,770 deaths from 65,513,286 infections, and Asia 816,508 deaths from 52,402,024 cases.
The United States and Canada has reported 693,890 deaths from 43,093,308 cases, Africa 204,429 deaths from 8,105,043 cases, the Middle East 191,970 deaths from 12,946,002 cases, and Oceania 1,887 deaths from 150,155 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)
