PARIS: The novel coronavirus has killed at least 2,853,908 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to an AFP tally from official sources at 1000 GMT on Monday.

At least 131,213,930 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 Sunday, 6,657 new deaths and 519,076 new cases were recorded worldwide.

Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were Brazil with 1,240 followed by India with 478 and Russia with 343.

The United States is the worst-affected country with 555,001 deaths from 30,706,128 cases.

After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 331,433 deaths from 12,984,956 cases, Mexico with 204,147 deaths from 2,250,458 cases, India with 165,101 deaths from 12,589,067 cases, and the United Kingdom with 126,836 deaths from 4,359,388 cases.

The country with the highest number of deaths compared to population is Czech Republic with 253 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants followed by Hungary with 225, Montenegro 207, Bosnia-Herzegovina 206 and Belgium 200.

Europe overall has 971,276 deaths from 44,806,515 cases, Latin America and the Caribbean 797,518 deaths from 25,275,870 infections, and the United States and Canada 578,060 deaths from 31,708,934 cases.

Asia has reported 276,480 deaths from 18,441,664 cases, the Middle East 115,712 deaths from 6,667,933 cases, Africa 113,864 deaths from 4,274,378 cases, and Oceania 998 deaths from 38,636 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.