PARIS, May 8, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – The novel coronavirus has killed at least 3,272,332 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1000 GMT on Saturday.
At least 156,790,180 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 Friday, 13,882 new deaths and 844,761 new cases were recorded worldwide.
Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were India with 4,187 new deaths, followed by Brazil with 2,165 and the United States with 826.
The United States is the worst-affected country with 580,901 deaths from 32,652,028 cases.
After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 419,114 deaths from 15,082,449 cases, India with 238,270 deaths from 21,892,676 cases, Mexico with 218,657 deaths from 2,361,874 cases, and the United Kingdom with 127,598 deaths from 4,431,043 cases.
The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Hungary with 294 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by the Czech Republic with 277, Bosnia-Herzegovina with 268, Montenegro 244 and the Republic of North Macedonia 243.
Europe overall has 1,089,329 deaths from 51,366,755 cases, Latin America and the Caribbean 948,402 deaths from 29,710,364 infections, and the United States and Canada 605,417 deaths from 33,921,943 cases.
Asia has reported 370,378 deaths from 29,105,996 cases, the Middle East 133,851 deaths from 8,021,585 cases, Africa 123,895 deaths from 4,619,579 cases, and Oceania 1,060 deaths from 43,967 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 a part of the real total number of infections as a significant number of less serious or asymptomatic cases always 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.