Global death toll from COVID-19 now at 3.68 million -AFP

The novel coronavirus has killed at least 3,681,985 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1000 GMT on Wednesday. 

At least 171,096,690 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 organizations, 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 Tuesday, 14,742 new deaths and 478,460 new cases were recorded worldwide. 

Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were Mexico with 4,272 (including previously unrecorded suspicious deaths added to the toll), followed by India with 3,207 and Brazil with 2,408. 

The United States is the worst-affected country with 595,213 deaths from 33,287,577 cases. After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 465,199 deaths from 16,624,480 cases, India with 335,102 deaths from 28,307,832 cases, Mexico with 227,840 deaths from 2,420,659 cases, and Peru with 184,507 deaths from 1,961,087 cases. 

The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Peru, with 560 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Hungary with 308, Bosnia-Herzegovina with 283, Czech Republic with 281, and Republic of North Macedonia with 260. 

Latin America and the Caribbean overall has 1,161,745 deaths from 33,209,221 cases, Europe 1,137,172 deaths from 53,008,587 infections, and the United States and Canada 620,777 deaths from 34,670,316 cases. 

Asia has reported 487,166 deaths from 36,664,979 cases, the Middle East 143,067 deaths from 8,639,509 cases, Africa 130,956 deaths from 4,855,232 cases, and Oceania 1,102 deaths from 48,851 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. -Agence France-Presse