MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AFP) — Latin America and the Caribbean passed the 25 million mark Friday for recorded coronavirus cases as a surge in infections saw countries place restrictions on travel and movement while vaccine campaigns catch up.

An AFP tally showed the region reaching the grim milestone of 25,001,533 infections, putting it in third place after Europe with 44.2 million cases and the United States and Canada with over 31.5 million.

The death toll for Latin America and the Caribbean exceeded 788,000, according to AFP’s count, second only to Europe which has lost some 936,000 people in the pandemic.

Infection rates in South America have soared in recent months, likely fuelled by a seemingly more contagious variant, dubbed P1, first detected in the continent’s largest country, Brazil, and since found in several other countries.

“We note that the P1 variant appears to be more transmissible,” Pan American Health Organization official Sylvain Aldighieri said this week.

Brazil is at the epicentre of the region’s latest epidemic wave, reporting a staggering 66,500 COVID-19 deaths in March alone, and more than 325,000 in total so far.

Mexico follows with more than 294,000 deaths, according to recent government data revealing figures much higher than the official fatality toll of about 203,000.