PARIS, France (AFP) — The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 750,000 people worldwide since it first emerged in China in December, according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources at 1210 GMT on Thursday.

A total of 750,003 deaths have been recorded, out of 20,667,684 cases across the globe.

Latin America and the Caribbean were the hardest hit region with 228,572 fatalities.

Almost half of the deaths reported worldwide were in the four worst hit countries: the United States (166,038), Brazil (104,201), Mexico (54,666) and India (47,033).

In total, the number of people killed by the virus has doubled since June 2, while 100,000 people have died in the last 17 days alone.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, more than 18,600 deaths have occurred in the past week, ahead of Canada and the United States at over 8,000, Asia at 7,800, Africa with nearly 2,700 and Europe with almost 2,600.

Overall, Oceania has been the least affected in terms of deaths with just under 400 for 24,000 infections.

And of almost 1.1 million people confirmed infected in Africa, so far just over 24,000 have died.