PARIS: The novel coronavirus has killed at least 4,492,854 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 215,876,370 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 directly and indirectly linked to Covid-19.

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

On Saturday, 8,734 new deaths and 535,547 new cases were recorded worldwide.

Coronavirus toll at 1000 GMT Wednesday

Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were Russia with 797 new deaths, followed by Mexico with 756 and Brazil with 684.

The United States is the worst-affected country with 637,237 deaths from 38,757,191 cases.

After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 579,010 deaths from 20,728,605 cases, India with 437,830 deaths from 32,695,030 cases, Mexico with 257,906 deaths from 3,328,863 cases, and Peru with 198,167 deaths from 2,148,419 cases.

The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Peru with 601 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Hungary with 311, Bosnia-Herzegovina with 298, the Czech Republic with 284, the Republic of North Macedonia with 280 and Montenegro with 273.

Latin America and the Caribbean overall have 1,435,209 deaths from 43,122,529 cases, Europe 1,245,266 deaths from 62,778,172 infections, and Asia 772,903 deaths from 49,786,441 cases.

The United States and Canada have reported 664,134 deaths from 40,244,467 cases, Africa 194,123 deaths from 7,727,561 cases, the Middle East 179,529 deaths from 12,100,673 cases, and Oceania 1,690 deaths from 116,534 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.