PARIS: The novel coronavirus has killed at least 4,945,746 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1000 GMT on Monday.

At least 243,563,950 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 Sunday, 4,901 new deaths and 316,448 new cases were recorded worldwide. Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were Russia with 1,069 new deaths, followed by India with 443 and Romania with 389.

Coronavirus toll at 1000 GMT Sunday

The United States is the worst-affected country with 735,941 deaths from 45,444,413 cases.

After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 605,644 deaths from 21,729,763 cases, India with 454,712 deaths from 34,189,774 cases, Mexico with 286,346 deaths from 3,783,327 cases, and Russia with 231,669 deaths from 8,279,573 cases.

The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Peru with 607 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Bosnia-Herzegovina with 345, Republic of North Macedonia with 338, Bulgaria with 331, Montenegro with 329, and Hungary with 316.

Latin America and the Caribbean overall have 1,515,097 deaths from 45,736,204 cases, Europe 1,376,048 deaths from 72,640,823 infections, and Asia 863,601 deaths from 55,503,136 cases.

The United States and Canada have reported 764,688 deaths from 47,141,870 cases, Africa 216,937 deaths from 8,469,559 cases, Middle East 206,708 deaths from 13,829,789 cases, and Oceania 2,667 deaths from 242,573 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.