The novel coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 750,000 people worldwide since its discovery in China in December, according to an AFP count from official sources on Thursday.
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Latin America and the Caribbean concentrate nearly half of global deaths
A total of 750,003 deaths have been recorded worldwide out of 20,667,684 reported cases. Latin America and the Caribbean is the most affected region with 228,572 deaths and nearly half of global Covid-19 deaths have been recorded in four countries: the United States (166,038), Brazil (104,201), Mexico (54,666) and India (47,033). The number of deaths from Covid-19 has doubled since June 2 and more than 100,000 new deaths have been recorded in 17 days, since July 26.
It was 114 days between the announcement of the first official death in China and the census of 250,000 dead worldwide, then 55 more days to exceed the mark of half a million deaths recorded on June 28.
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Latin America and the Caribbean, the most affected region in the world in terms of number of deaths (228,572) and cases (5,822,258), is still experiencing rapid progression of the pandemic with 18,627 new deaths from Covid-19 recorded in its last seven days. Next come Canada and the United States (8.025), Asia (7.807), Africa (2.654), Europe (2.575), the Middle East (2.162) and Oceania (106). In total, behind Latin America, Europe had 214,605 deaths for 3,433,815 cases, ahead of Canada and the United States (175,082, 5,318,592), Asia (75,896, 3,709,662), and the Middle East (31,182, 1,283,377).
Africa and Oceania, the least affected continents
Africa (24,272, 1,075,589), the least affected continent after Oceania (394, 24,391), has recorded more than half of its deaths since July 6. The United States is the country with the most new deaths in the last week (7,979), ahead of Brazil (6,945), India (6,296), Mexico (4,968) and Colombia (2,213). Among the hardest hit countries, Belgium is the one that deplores the highest number of deaths relative to its population, with 85 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by the United Kingdom (69), Peru (66), the Spain (61), and Italy (58).