By Haruna Gimba
The novel coronavirus has killed at least 2,847,182 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1000 GMT on Sunday.
At least 130,685,270 cases of coronavirus have been registered. The vast majority have recovered, though some have continued to experience symptoms weeks or even months later.
These figures are based on daily tolls provided by health authorities in each country and exclude later re-evaluations by statistical organisations, as has happened in Russia, Spain and Britain.
On Saturday, 8,985 new deaths and 535,740 new cases were recorded worldwide.
Based on the latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were Brazil with 1,987, followed by United States with 800 and India with 513.
The United States is the worst-affected country with 554,779 deaths from 30,671,844 cases.
After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 330,193 deaths from 12,953,597 cases, Mexico with 204,011 deaths from 2,249,195 cases, India with 164,623 deaths from 12,485,509 cases, and the United Kingdom with 126,826 deaths from 4,357,091 cases.
The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is the Czech Republic with 252 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Hungary with 223, Montenegro 207, Bosnia-Herzegovina 206 and Belgium 199.
Europe overall has 968,790 deaths from 44,583,896 cases, Latin America and the Caribbean 795,357 deaths from 25,198,343 infections, and the United States and Canada 577,830 deaths from 31,668,923 cases.
Asia has reported 275,247 deaths from 18,303,260 cases, the Middle East 115,317 deaths from 6,627,888 cases, Africa 113,644 deaths from 4,264,758 cases, and Oceania 997 deaths from 38,204 cases.
Since the start of the pandemic, the number of tests conducted has greatly increased while testing and reporting techniques have improved, leading to a rise in reported cases.
However the number of diagnosed cases is only part of the true total number of infections as a significant number of less serious or asymptomatic cases remain undetected.
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.
