The number of coronavirus cases recorded worldwide has passed 18 million, according to an AFP tally from official sources at 2240 GMT Sunday.
At least 18,011,763 cases have now been registered as the pandemic’s rate of infection continues to accelerate. A million more cases have been detected in just the last four days.
More than half of the world’s cases have been recorded in the United States and in Latin America and the Caribbean region.
The United States is the worst-hit country with 4,657,693 cases including 154,793 deaths, followed by Brazil, with 2,733,677 cases and 94,104 deaths.
The third worst-hit country is India, with 1,750,723 cases and 37,364 deaths.
Worldwide, there have been 687,941 deaths.
The tallies, using data collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the World Health Organization (WHO), probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections.
Many countries are testing only symptomatic or the most serious cases.
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© Agence France-Presse
/AFP