PARIS: The novel coronavirus has killed at least 1,731,936 people since the outbreak emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT on Thursday.

At least 78,678,240 cases of coronavirus have been registered. Of these, at least 49,787,800 are now considered recovered.

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.

On Wednesday, 13,539 new deaths and 656,309 new cases were recorded worldwide. Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were United States with 3,254 new deaths, followed by Brazil with 961 and Mexico with 816.

The United States is the worst-affected country with 326,232 deaths from 18,466,227 cases. At least 6,298,082 people have been declared recovered.

After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 189,220 deaths from 7,365,517 cases, India with 146,756 deaths from 10,123,778 cases, Mexico with 120,311 deaths from 1,350,079 cases, and Italy with 70,395 deaths from 1,991,278 cases.

The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Belgium with 163 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Slovenia with 118, Bosnia-Herzegovina with 117, Italy 116 and Peru 113.

Europe overall has 536,186 deaths from 24,755,705 cases, Latin America and the Caribbean 491,661 deaths from 14,922,509 infections, and the United States and Canada 340,786 deaths from 18,992,598 cases. Asia has reported 213,480 deaths from 13,565,491 cases, the Middle East 88,001 deaths from 3,837,154 cases, Africa 60,878 deaths from 2,573,929 cases, and Oceania 944 deaths from 30,861 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.