PARIS: The novel coronavirus has killed at least 4,771,320 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1000 GMT on Thursday.
At least 233,239,040 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, 9,763 new deaths and 491,301 new cases were recorded worldwide.
Coronavirus toll at 1000 GMT Wednesday
Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were United States with 2,543 new deaths, followed by Russia with 867 and Brazil with 676.
The United States is the worst-affected country with 695,116 deaths from 43,349,448 cases.
After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 596,122 deaths from 21,399,546 cases, India with 448,062 deaths from 33,739,980 cases, Mexico with 276,973 deaths from 3,655,395 cases, and Russia with 207,255 deaths from 7,511,026 cases.
The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Peru with 605 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Bosnia-Herzegovina with 322, Republic of North Macedonia with 319, Hungary with 312, Montenegro with 306, and Bulgaria with 298.
Latin America and the Caribbean overall has 1,488,310 deaths from 44,897,739 cases, Europe 1,310,047 deaths from 67,686,268 infections, and Asia 839,029 deaths from 53,870,005 cases.
The United States and Canada has reported 722,887 deaths from 44,966,680 cases, Africa 210,361 deaths from 8,291,809 cases, Middle East 198,528 deaths from 13,349,108 cases, and Oceania 2,158 deaths from 177,438 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.