The global death toll due to COVID-19 has now passed three million, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University.
The European Union and Economic Area account for at least 645,412 deaths, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
The US is the country with the highest number of reported deaths due to COVID-19 with more than a half a million. The country is followed by Brazil, Mexico and India.
The United Kingdom, Italy and France have all recorded more than 100,000 deaths due to the virus.
But the death toll is likely much higher than the official counts due to early testing problems and underreporting cases at the beginning of the crisis.
It has been one year and four months since the first reports of the virus emerged from China.
The stark global death toll comes at a time that the epidemic is worsening in several countries amid the emergence of new and more transmissible variants. India recently reported more than 200,000 new coronavirus cases in a day.
Several European countries have been struggling to contain infections as the variant first detected in the UK spreads rapidly.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization warned that the trajectory of the pandemic was growing.
European region still faces high hospitalisations
The World Health Organization (WHO) said the European region which includes some central Asian countries, recently reached at least one million deaths.
The European branch of the international organisation warned that the situation in the region was “serious” with 1.6 million new cases are reported every week.
Hospitalisations remain high across the region even as transmission has slowed in some countries, WHO Europe regional director Hans Kluge said.
Deaths in people over the age of 80 have fallen to their lowest level due to high uptake of vaccines in that age group, however.
Once again, Kluge called for countries to use public health measures to drive down virus infections.
