PARIS: The novel coronavirus has killed at least 5,173,915 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT on Thursday.
At least 258,929,020 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 Wednesday, 8,865 new deaths and 626,666 new cases were recorded worldwide.
Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were United States with 1,788 new deaths, followed by Russia with 1,238 and Ukraine with 628.
Coronavirus toll at 1100 GMT Wednesday
The United States is the worst-affected country with 775,397 deaths from 48,091,937 cases.
After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 613,339 deaths from 22,043,112 cases, India with 466,980 deaths from 34,544,882 cases, Mexico with 293,186 deaths from 3,872,263 cases, and Russia with 269,057 deaths from 9,468,189 cases.
The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Peru with 609 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Bulgaria with 398, Bosnia-Herzegovina with 378, Montenegro with 361, Republic of North Macedonia with 359, Hungary with 347 and Czech Republic with 304.
Latin America and the Caribbean overall have 1,536,984 deaths from 46,537,071 cases, Europe 1,500,157 deaths from 82,374,912 infections, and Asia 892,783 deaths from 56,984,911 cases.
The United States and Canada have reported 804,977 deaths from 49,866,883 cases, Africa 222,030 deaths from 8,616,303 cases, Middle East 213,734 deaths from 14,249,368 cases, and Oceania 3,250 deaths from 299,572 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.