The novel coronavirus has killed at least 2,570,291 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT on Friday.
At least 115,568,760 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 Thursday, 9,007 new deaths and 424,952 new cases were recorded worldwide.
Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were Brazil with 1,699 new deaths, followed by United States with 1,016 and Mexico with 822.
The United States is the worst-affected country with 520,356 deaths from 28,827,140 cases.
After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 260,970 deaths from 10,793,732 cases, Mexico with 188,866 deaths from 2,112,508 cases, India with 157,548 deaths from 11,173,797 cases, and the United Kingdom with 124,025 deaths from 4,201,358 cases.
The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Czech Republic with 199 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Belgium with 192, Slovenia 186, United Kingdom 183 and Montenegro 166.
Europe overall has 867,606 deaths from 38,249,394 cases, Latin America and the Caribbean 690,512 deaths from 21,758,761 infections, and the United States and Canada 542,492 deaths from 29,704,473 cases.
Asia has reported 258,522 deaths from 16,266,951 cases, the Middle East 105,224 deaths from 5,619,893 cases, Africa 104,984 deaths from 3,936,675 cases, and Oceania 951 deaths from 32,619 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.
