Coronavirus cases pass 5.25 million worldwide

The number of cases of coronavirus recorded worldwide has passed 5.25 million, more than two-thirds of them in Europe and the United States, according to an AFP tally at 1650 GMT Saturday.

There are now 5,250,658 cases officially recorded, with 339,172 deaths attributed to the virus. Europe is the hardest-hit continent, with 2,003,510 cases and 173,186 deaths, while the United States is the worst-hit country, with 1,604,879 cases and 96,125 deaths.

These latest figures mean that the number of recorded cases worldwide has doubled in a month and that 250,000 new cases have been recorded in less than three days.

The region that is seeing the swiftest rise in cases is now Latin America and the Caribbean, which saw 33,719 recorded on Friday -- against 28,647 in the United States and Canada, which was previously where new recorded cases were appearing fastest.

On Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that South America was "a new epicenter" of the virus, describing the situation in Brazil as particularly alarming.

The tallies, using data collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the WHO, probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections.

Many countries are testing only symptomatic or the most serious cases.