Coronavirus toll at 1000 GMT Sunday

PARIS: The novel coronavirus has killed at least 2,929,563 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 135,360,240 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, 12,860 new deaths and 703,283 new cases were recorded worldwide.

Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were Brazil with 2,616 new deaths, followed by Mexico with 2,192 and India with 839.

The United States is the worst-affected country with 561,783 deaths from 31,151,493 cases.

After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 351,334 deaths from 13,445,006 cases, Mexico with 209,212 deaths from 2,278,420 cases, India with 169,275 deaths from 13,358,805 cases, and the United Kingdom with 127,080 deaths from 4,368,045 cases.

The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is the Czech Republic with 260 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Hungary with 240, Bosnia-Herzegovina 222, Montenegro 217 and Bulgaria 206.

Europe overall has 995,904 deaths from 46,239,235 cases, Latin America and the Caribbean 829,491 deaths from 26,155,031 infections, and the United States and Canada 585,064 deaths from 32,202,350 cases.

Asia has reported 284,283 deaths from 19,440,404 cases, the Middle East 118,368 deaths from 6,940,672 cases, Africa 115,448 deaths from 4,342,503 cases, and Oceania 1,005 deaths from 40,053 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.