Paris – The novel coronavirus has killed at least 329,799 people since the outbreak first emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1900 GMT on Thursday.(3 AM Wednesday Philippine time).
At least 5,049,390 cases of coronavirus have been registered in 196 countries and territories. Of these, at least 1,867,800 are now considered recovered.
The number of infections is almost double the toll of 2,513,117 one month ago on April 21.
Latin America in particular has seen a rapid rise in the number of cases, led largely by Brazil.
Since 1900 GMT Wednesday, there were 4,563 new deaths and 106,338 new cases recorded worldwide. The countries with the highest number of new deaths were the United States with 1,280, Brazil with 888 and Mexico with 424.
The tallies, using data collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the World Health Organization (WHO), probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections.
Many countries are testing only symptomatic or the most serious cases.
The United States remains the country with the highest number of deaths overall with 93,863 from 1,562,714 cases. At least 294,312 people have been declared recovered.
After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Britain with 36,042 deaths from 250,908 cases, Italy with 32,486 from 228,006 cases, France with 28,215 deaths and 181,826 cases, and Spain with 27,940 and 233,037 cases.
China — excluding Hong Kong and Macau — has to date declared 4,634 deaths and 82,967 cases. It has 78,249 recovered cases.
The country with the highest death rate is Belgium, with 79 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Spain with 60, Italy 54, Britain 53 and France 43.
Europe overall has 170,776 deaths from 1,963,531 cases, the United States and Canada 100,087 deaths and 1,643,991 cases, Latin America and the Caribbean 34,049 deaths from 617,811 cases, Asia 13,183 deaths from 401,458 cases, the Middle East 8,519 deaths from 315,935 cases, Africa 3,057 deaths from 98,237 cases, and Oceania 128 deaths from 8,435 cases.
Corrections by national authorities or late publication of data mean the figures updated over the past 24 hours may not correspond exactly to the previous day's tallies.
