Asia’s virus death toll tops 100,000

PARIS: Asia has registered more than 100,000 deaths linked to the new coronavirus since it first emerged in December, according to a tally based on official sources.

A total of 100,667 deaths have been attributed to the coronavirus in the region out of 5.42 million officially declared cases, with 4.25m people considered to have recovered.

In terms of fatalities, India is the most affected country with nearly three-quarters of total deaths in the region — 67,376 deaths from 3.85 million cases.

It is followed by Indonesia with 7,616 deaths from 180,646 cases and Pakistan (6,328 deaths, 297,014 cases).

The continent, which had successfully contained the virus after its discovery in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December, has faced an increase in the daily number of cases and deaths since August.

Nearly 90,000 infections and 1,200 fatalities have been reported on average every day for the past week.

This represents an 11 per cent increase in the number of cases and a six per cent rise in the number of deaths over the previous week.

The region also had the most cases in one week at 618,000 and the second highest number of deaths at 8,600, a figure topped only by Latin America, which still records more than 16,000 deaths weekly.

As well as being the worst-hit country in Asia, India has also reported the biggest surge in the world in a week, with more than half a million new cases (up 15 per cent in seven days) and more than 6,800 new deaths (up five per cent).

In terms of deaths, Asia is the fourth most affected region in the world, behind Latin America and the Caribbean (282,979 deaths, 7,514,473 cases), Europe (216,596 deaths, 4,049,902 cases), the United States and Canada (194,915 deaths, 6,244,459 cases).

Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2020