In its latest update on Thursday morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and death toll stood at 263,455,239 and 5,223,909 respectively. And the total number of vaccine doses administered was 8,036,770,046.

The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 48,692,483 and 782,099, respectively according to the CSSE.

The second worst hit country in terms of cases is India (34,596,776 infections and 469,247 deaths), followed by Brazil (22,105,872 infections and 614,964 deaths).

The other worst countries with over 5 million cases are the UK (10,333,583), Russia (9,500,836), Turkey (8,820,114), France (7,829,045), Iran (6,121,757), Germany (5,953,718), Argentina (5,332,629), Spain (5,174,720) and Colombia (5,071,817), the CSSE figures showed.

Nations with a death toll of over 100,000 are Mexico (294,428), Russia (271,091), Peru (201,176), the UK (145,585), Indonesia (143,840), Italy (133,931), Iran (129,912), Colombia (128,528), France (120,112) and Argentina (116,589).