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Coronavirus is continuing its spread across the world, with more than 17 million confirmed cases in 188 countries. Nearly 700,000 people have lost their lives.

Cases of the disease are continuing to surge in many countries, while others which had apparent success in suppressing initial outbreaks are now seeing infections rise again.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says the pandemic seems to be unfolding in "one big wave", with little sign of the seasonal variation seen with other viruses.

Coronavirus cases rising again in Europe

Several countries across Europe have reported a recent rise in cases, sparking fears of a resurgence of the disease.

The WHO says that increasing infections among young people may be behind the latest outbreaks, following the easing of lockdowns across Europe.

Latest figures from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) show the rate of infection to 28 July in Spain was 44 cases per million people - compared with 10.5 in the UK.

France, Belgium and Germany have also seen increases, and there have been renewed appeals to the public to maintain social distancing and hygiene rules.

Other countries outside Europe that also appeared to have controlled initial outbreaks, like Israel, Australia and Japan, are now seeing cases rise again.

In the table below, countries can be reordered by deaths, death rate and total cases. In the coloured bars on the right-hand side, countries in which cases have risen to more than 5,000 per day are those with black bars on the relevant date.

US surge of cases continues

The US has seen record numbers of new cases in recent weeks and the death toll has also started to rise.

The renewed surge is being driven by fresh outbreaks in the south and west of the country, which have seen infection rates go up since states started easing lockdown restrictions at the end of May.

The death toll stands at more than 150,000 - almost a quarter of the reported coronavirus deaths around the world.

President Donald Trump has warned that the US pandemic may "get worse before it gets better".

The University of Washington predicts the death toll could hit more than 230,000 by the beginning of November - though it says this could be reduced to about 200,000 if 95% of Americans wore masks in public.

The outbreak has had a devastating impact on the US economy, with GDP falling by a record annualised rate of 32.9% in the three months from April to June.

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Where else are cases and deaths rising?

The WHO says Latin America is the epicentre of the pandemic. Brazil has the second highest number of cases in the world and has recorded more than 90,000 deaths.

Cases have also been rising sharply in Mexico, Peru, Colombia and Argentina.

In Asia, India now has about 1.7 million cases and several states have re-imposed partial lockdowns.

South Africa and Egypt have seen the largest outbreaks so far in Africa. But testing rates are reported to be extremely low in some parts of the continent, which could be distorting official estimates of how far the virus has spread.

How many cases and deaths have there been overall?

There have been more than 17 million confirmed cases so far and nearly 700,000 people have died.

Note: The map, table and animated bar chart in this page use a different source for figures for France from that used by Johns Hopkins University, which results in a slightly lower overall total. US figures do not include Puerto Rico, Guam or the US Virgin Islands.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said the coronavirus pandemic is "easily the most severe" global health emergency the organisation has ever seen and that it "continues to accelerate".

However, he has also pointed out that, though the virus has been detected in 188 countries, almost half of all cases reported so far were from just three: the US, Brazil and India.

The virus, which causes the respiratory infection Covid-19, was first detected in the city of Wuhan, China, in late 2019.

The outbreak spread quickly across the globe in the first months of 2020 and declared a global pandemic by the WHO on 11 March.

A pandemic is when an infectious disease is passing easily from person to person in many parts of the world at the same time.

Europe and North America saw their first major outbreaks in April but as they began to ease, Latin America and Asia started seeing cases spike.

Governments across the world have been forced to limit public movement and close businesses and venues in a bid to slow the spread of the virus. This has had a devastating impact on the global economy.

The International Monetary Fund has said the world is in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression and warned that it could take two years for economic output to return to pre-pandemic levels.

The United Nations has said that up to 265 million people could face starvation by the end of the year because of the impact of Covid-19.

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About this data

The data used on this page comes from a variety of sources. It includes figures collated by Johns Hopkins University, data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, national governments and health agencies, as well as UN data on populations.

When comparing figures from different countries it is important to bear in mind that not all governments are recording coronavirus cases and deaths in the same way. This makes like for like comparisons between countries difficult.

Other factors to consider include: different population sizes, the size of a country's elderly population or whether a particular country has a large amount of its people living in densely-populated areas. In addition, countries may be in different stages of the pandemic.