Paris (AFP)

The world has passed Sunday the milestone of 10 million officially diagnosed cases of the new coronavirus, according to a count by AFP, testifying to an acceleration of the pandemic, especially in the Americas, against a background of fears of a "second wave ”and partial reconfiguration measures.

At least 10,003,942 cases of infection, including 498,779 deaths, have been recorded, especially in Europe, the continent most affected with 2,637,546 cases and 195,975 deaths, as well as in the United States (2,510,323 cases, including 125,539 deaths). The pandemic is now progressing most rapidly in Latin America, with more than 400,000 cases recorded in the last seven days on the continent.

The number of cases reported worldwide has doubled since May 21 and more than a million new cases of Covid-19 have been recorded in the past 6 days alone. 94 days had passed between the announcement of the first case in China and the identification of a million infections worldwide.

The United States crossed 2.5 million cases on Saturday, and on the same day India passed the 500,000 mark, with a record of some 18,500 cases in one day. The Indian giant is expected to pass the million mark in July, according to epidemiologists.

All of these reports, however, only reflect a fraction of the actual number of contaminations. The American Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) estimate the order of 10 times the number of Americans having been infected, that is to say more than 20 million people, which represents between 5 and 8% of population.

Contagion is spreading in 30 of the 50 American states, especially in the largest and most populated in the south and west: California, Texas and Florida.

Latin America and the Caribbean are still the part of the world where the disease is progressing most rapidly: from June 21 to 27, the region recorded 408,401 new cases, compared to 253,624 in the United States and Canada and 121,824 in Europe.

The increase in the region (2,432,558 cases including 110,695 deaths in total) is largely linked to the increase in cases in Brazil (1,313,667 cases including 246,088 new in the last seven days), but also in Peru (275,989 , 24,651 new), Chile (267,766, 31,018), Mexico (212.802, 37,600 new) and Colombia (88,592, 22,959 new).

Asia seems to see an increase in the number of daily cases of Covid-19, now driven by the sustained spread of the disease in India (528,859 cases including 118,398 in the last seven days), Pakistan (202,955, 26,338 new) and Bangladesh (137,787, 25,481 new).

In Europe, the number of new infections identified daily has stabilized for more than a month at less than 20,000 new cases reported each day, but WHO is concerned about an acceleration of contamination in eleven countries in the region. Ukraine notably recorded 1,109 cases on Friday, a record described by the authorities as a "serious wave".

© 2020 AFP