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Nearly five months since a global pandemic was declared coronavirus is continuing its spread across the world - with nearly 20 million confirmed cases in 188 countries. More than 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.

Where are cases and deaths rising?

Latin America is the epicentre of the pandemic, says the World Health Organization. Brazil has the second highest number of cases in the world, after the US, and has recorded more than 100,000 deaths. Mexico, the second-most affected country in the region, has recorded more than 50,000 deaths.

Cases have also risen rapidly in Colombia, Peru, Argentina and Venezuela.

Iran has also been badly affected by the pandemic. Information leaked to the BBC Persian service revealed the number of deaths from coronavirus was 42,000 by 20 July, around three times the total claimed by Iran's government.

In Africa, South Africa and Egypt have seen the largest outbreaks so far, with South Africa becoming only the fifth country in the world to record more than 500,000 confirmed cases.

Across the continent, there have been more than a million confirmed cases, although the true extent of the pandemic there is not known. Testing rates are reported to be low, which could distort official estimates.

India now has world's highest daily cases and deaths

India has recorded more than 50,000 new infections every day for more than a week, and has pushed past two million cases in total.

The world's second most populous country has the fifth highest death toll, but is continuing to ease public restrictions despite the spike in cases.

Coronavirus cases rising again in Europe

Several countries across Europe have reported a recent rise in cases.

Travellers from the UK have been told they will have to quarantine for two weeks if they are returning from Spain, Belgium or Luxembourg, following a surge in infections. Cases in France are also rising again.

A number of countries have re-imposed localised lockdowns in their worst-affected regions, and there have been renewed appeals for people to wear masks and follow social distancing rules.

Spain appears to have suffered the worst spike so far - although most of the new cases have been concentrated in the north-east of the country.

Other countries outside Europe that also appeared to have controlled initial outbreaks, like Israel, Australia and Japan, have seen 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, although numbers are now falling again.

The death toll stands at more than 160,000 - more than a fifth 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 295,000 by the beginning of December - though it says this could be reduced to about 230,000 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 rate of 32.9% in the three months from April to June.

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How many cases and deaths have there been overall?

There have been nearly 20 million confirmed cases worldwide so far and more than 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 there may never be a vaccine - or "silver bullet" - to defeat the virus.

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.