Europe's coronavirus cases top two million

More than two million cases of the new coronavirus have been officially declared in Europe, nearly two-thirds of which were reported in Russia, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy and France, according to an AFP tally at 1600 GMT Saturday.

With at least 173,133 deaths out of 2,001,995 cases, Europe is the continent most affected by the pandemic.

Worldwide, a total of 5,244,616 cases, including 339,011 deaths, have been recorded.

Russia is the European country with the highest number of cases (335,882 with 3,388 deaths) and a daily increase of about 10,000 new cases reported since the beginning of May.

The United Kingdom (257,154 cases with 36,675 deaths), Spain (234,824 cases with 28,628 deaths), Italy (229,327 cases with 32,735 deaths) and France (182,219 cases with 28,289 deaths) are the other four worst-hit European countries.

The tallies, using data collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the World Health Organization (WHO), probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections.

Many countries are testing only symptomatic or the most serious cases.

© 2020 AFP