The worldwide death toll from the novel coronavirus pandemic rose to 126,898 on Wednesday, according to a tally compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT from official sources.

More than 2,001,200 declared cases have been registered in 193 countries and territories since the epidemic first emerged in China in December. Of these cases, at least 428,100 are now considered recovered.

In the past 24 hours, 6,885 new deaths and 77,810 new infections have been recorded around the world.

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 the most serious cases.

In the United States, now the epicenter of the pandemic, 2,410 more deaths have been recorded in the last 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 26,059 with 609,516 infections. At least 44,364 patients have recovered.

Italy is the next most-affected country with 21,067 deaths from 162,488 infections.

It is followed by Spain with 18,579 fatalities from 177,633 confirmed infections, France with 15,729 deaths and 143,303 infections and Britain with 12,107 deaths from 93,873 cases.

China — excluding Hong Kong and Macau — has to date declared 3,342 deaths and 82,295 cases with 77,738 recoveries.

Europe has listed 1,010,896 cases and 85,272 deaths to date, the US and Canada together have 636,413 cases with 26,983 deaths, Asia 147,564 cases with

5,218 deaths, the Middle East 108,791 cases with 5,135 deaths, Latin America and the Caribbean 73,673 cases with 3,343 deaths, Africa 16,215 cases with 869 deaths and Oceania 7,652 cases with 78 deaths.

Source: AFP