PARIS: The novel coronavirus has killed at least 4,891,684 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 240,314,450 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, 5,512 new deaths and 352,368 new cases were recorded worldwide.

Coronavirus toll at 1000 GMT Thursday

Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were Russia with 997 new deaths, followed by United States with 486 and Brazil with 483.

The United States is the worst-affected country with 724,153 deaths from 44,916,462 cases.

After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 603,152 deaths from 21,638,726 cases, India with 452,124 deaths from 34,067,719 cases, Mexico with 284,321 deaths from 3,755,053 cases, and Russia with 223,312 deaths from 7,992,687 cases.

The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Peru with 606 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Bosnia-Herzegovina with 339, Republic of North Macedonia with 332, Montenegro with 322, Bulgaria with 319, and Hungary with 314.

Latin America and the Caribbean overall has 1,508,394 deaths from 45,513,200 cases, Europe 1,352,088 deaths from 70,785,226 infections, and Asia 856,380 deaths from 55,079,537 cases.

The United States and Canada has reported 752,626 deaths from 46,593,818 cases, Africa 215,307 deaths from 8,430,722 cases, Middle East 204,419 deaths from 13,690,555 cases, and Oceania 2,470 deaths from 221,392 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.