South America becomes new epicentre of corona: WHO

New York/Brasilia : South America has become the new epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

With a total of 330,098 COVID-19 cases, Brazil has since surpassed Russia as the country with the second-highest number of infections after the US.

The rest of the continent has not fared much better. Peru has 108,769 cases, Chile 61,857, Ecuador 35,828 and Colombia 18,330 positive cases.

The rest of the continent is suffering in smaller numbers, but the rates of increase are not showing signs of flattening just yet.

"We've seen many South American countries with increasing numbers of cases and clearly there's a concern across many of those countries, but certainly the most affected is Brazil at this point," Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO's emergencies programme, said at a news briefing on Friday.

"In a sense, South America has become the new epicentre for the disease," he added.

Brazil reached the grim milestone after it reported 20,803 new cases on Friday, while fatalities climbed by 1,001 to 21,048.

In Brazil, Sao Paulo state, home to 46 million of the country's 210 million people, accounts for 76,871 cases and nearly 30 per cent of the deaths.

Next comes Rio de Janeiro, whose capital city is experiencing a coronavirus mortality rate of 12.7 per cent, almost double the national rate of 6.5 per cent, according to the IBGE statistics agency.

The country is now has its third health minister in a month.

Apart from promoting the use of chloroquine, the Brazilian government continues with lack of a clearly enunciated strategy to combat coronavirus, the peak of which in Brazil is expected in July.

President JairBolsonaro, meanwhile, continues to downplay the seriousness of the disease and is exerting pressure to reopen the country and resume economic activities of all sorts, this at a time when the country may be en route to surpassing the US as the world epicentre of the pandemic.

The overall number of global coronavirus cases has increased to over 5.2 million, while the death toll surged past 338,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

As of Saturday morning, the total number of cases stood at 5,210,065, while the death toll increased to 338,142, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed in its latest update.

Currently, the US accounts for the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 1,600,782 and 95,972, respectively, according to the latest figures by the Johns Hopkins University.

Brazil accounted for the second highest number of infections, followed by Russia (326,448), the UK (255,544), Spain (234,824), Italy (228,658), France (182,015), Germany (179,710), Turkey (154,500), Iran (131,652), India (124,794) and Peru (111,698), the CSSE figures showed.

Meanwhile, the UK came in second after the US with 36,475 COVID-19 deaths, the highest fatalities in Europe. The other countries with over 10,000 deaths are Italy (32,616), Spain (28,628), France (28,218), and Brazil (21,048).