COVID-19 has killed more than 5.1 million worldwide
The novel coronavirus has killed at least 5,130,627 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT on Friday.
At least 255,488,020 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 Organization 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 Thursday, 8,265 new deaths and 585,392 new cases were recorded worldwide.
Based on the latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were the United States with 1,279, followed by Russia with 1,254 and Ukraine with 725.
The United States is the worst-affected country with 768,697 deaths from 47,531,381 cases.
After the United States, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 612,144 deaths from 21,989,962 cases, India with 465,082 deaths from 34,489,623 cases, Mexico with 291,929 deaths from 3,854,994 cases, and Russia with 261,589 deaths from 9,257,068 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 386, Bosnia with 371, Montenegro with 355, North Macedonia with 355, Hungary with 338 and the Czech Republic with 297.
Latin America and the Caribbean overall has 1,533,286 deaths from 46,389,734 cases, Europe 1,474,959 deaths from 80,087,911 infections, and Asia 887,407 deaths from 56,679,169 cases.
The United States and Canada have reported 798,136 deaths from 49,289,678 cases, Africa 221,248 deaths from 8,575,597 cases, the Middle East 212,465 deaths from 14,176,627 cases, and Oceania 3,126 deaths from 289,305 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)
