Coronavirus toll at 1000 GMT Saturday

PARIS: The novel coronavirus has killed at least 3,445,582 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 165,709,600 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 linked directly and indirectly to Covid-19.

A large number of the less severe or asymptomatic cases also remain undetected, despite intensified testing in many countries.

On Friday, 12,928 new deaths and 624,472 new cases were recorded worldwide.

Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were India with 4,194 new deaths, followed by Brazil with 2,215 and Argentina with 692.

The United States is the worst-affected country with 589,223 deaths from 33,085,210 cases.

After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 446,309 deaths from 15,970,949 cases, India with 295,525 deaths from 26,289,290 cases, Mexico with 221,256 deaths from 2,392,744 cases, and Britain with 127,710 deaths from 4,457,923 cases.

The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Hungary with 305 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Czech Republic with 280, Bosnia-Herzegovina with 278, Republic of North Macedonia 253 and Bulgaria 251.

Europe overall has 1,120,468 deaths from 52,334,904 cases, Latin America and the Caribbean 1,002,739 deaths from 31,626,609 infections, and the United States and Canada 614,375 deaths from 34,435,980 cases.

Asia has reported 439,255 deaths from 34,144,610 cases, the Middle East 139,714 deaths from 8,377,765 cases, Africa 127,937 deaths from 4,742,295 cases, and Oceania 1,094 deaths from 47,444 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.