The death toll from the new coronavirus has surpassed 5,000 in Europe, the new epicenter of the pandemic, with Italy, Spain and Germany reporting a steep rise in infections, and as worldwide fatalities surged past 11,000 on Saturday.
According to the latest reports, the virus has affected over 185 countries, causing 11,417 deaths so far while among the 276,462 ones infected by coronavirus across the globe, some 91,954 have recovered.
China with a total of 81,008 cases, Italy with 47,021 ones and Spain with 21,571 are the top three countries with confirmed COVID-19 cases.
Italy announced 627 more deaths on Friday, the biggest day-to-day increase in the country's four-week epidemic, a day after surpassing China's death toll. The total number of deaths in Italy has now reached 4,032. Italy called in the military to enforce coronavirus lockdown as 627 people die in 24 hours.
Germany, the US, Iran, France and South Korea come next in the list.
Based on the latest reports by Iran’s Health Ministry on Friday, the death toll from the coronavirus outbreak in Iran has risen to 1,433 with 19,644 confirmed cases.
Singapore and the United Arab Emirates have recorded their first two deaths related to the novel coronavirus on Friday.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has described the coronavirus pandemic as the "defining global health crisis of our time", and urged countries to test all suspected cases of COVID-19.
MNA/