Global coronavirus cases surpass 5.2m

A patient is wheeled from Wyckoff Heights Medical Center to an ambulance as the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic continues in Brooklyn New York.Reuters

The highly contagious coronavirus continues to spread across the world as the officially confirmed cases rise to 5,210,065 on Saturday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University.

So far, 338,142 deaths have been recorded while two million people have so far recovered.

Coronavirus, first reported in China in December last year, is a respiratory disease which seems to start with a fever and cough. After a week, it leads to shortness of breath and some patients require treatments in hospital.

The US has so far the largest number with 1,600,937 confirmed cases and 95,979 deaths.

Brazil, the worst-hit country in Latin America, has the second-highest number of confirmed cases in the world. It has so far reported 330,890 cases.

The UK, on the other hand, has the second-highest death toll in the world with 36,475 confirmed coronavirus deaths.

Among other European countries, Italy, France and Spain are the worst-hit.

Meanwhile, China on Saturday said it did not record any new confirmed COVID-19 cases on the Chinese mainland on Friday, reports Xinhua.

No deaths related to the disease were reported on the day either, according to the China National Health Commission, adding that it received reports of two new suspected cases.

The outbreak was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March.

Meanwhile, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases across Africa surpassed 100,00 as of Friday afternoon, the African Centers for Diasease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said, reports Xinhua.

Bangladesh confirmed 30,205 coronavirus cases on Friday with the detection of 1,694 new cases in the span of 24 hours. During this period, 24 more people died from COVID-19 disease, taking the death toll to 432.