Global COVID-19 cases close to 219 million as death toll nears 4.54 million -AFP

The novel coronavirus has killed at least 4,539,397 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1000 GMT on Friday. 

At least 218,966,150 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 Thursday, 10,625 new deaths and 653,399 new cases were recorded worldwide. 

Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were United States with 1,549 new deaths, followed by Mexico with 993 and Russia with 799. 

The United States is the worst-affected country with 643,669 deaths from 39,549,299 cases. After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 581,914 deaths from 20,830,495 cases, India with 439,895 deaths from 32,903,289 cases, Mexico with 261,496 deaths from 3,387,885 cases, and Peru with 198,364 deaths from 2,152,118 cases. 

The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Peru with 602 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Hungary with 311, Bosnia-Herzegovina with 300, Republic of North Macedonia with 287, Czech Republic with 284 and Montenegro with 276. 

Latin America and the Caribbean overall has 1,444,902 deaths from 43,415,848 cases, Europe 1,255,063 deaths from 63,555,958 infections, and Asia 785,922 deaths from 50,585,531 cases.

The United States and Canada has reported 670,648 deaths from 41,053,945 cases, Africa 197,742 deaths from 7,851,924 cases, Middle East 183,378 deaths from 12,377,934 cases, and Oceania 1,742 deaths from 125,019 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