By Roshan Abraham and Ahmed Farhatha
Jun 18 – Coronavirus-related deaths around the world surpassed the grim milestone of 4 million on Thursday, according to a Reuters tally, as many countries continue to struggle to get enough vaccines to inoculate their populations.
While the number of new cases and deaths has dropped in countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, several nations are facing vaccine shortages as the Delta variant becomes the dominant strain worldwide.
According to a Reuters analysis, the number of deaths from COVID-19 took more than a year to reach two million, while the next two million were recorded in just 166 days.
The top five countries by total number of deaths – the United States, Brazil, India, Russia and Mexico – account for about 50% of all deaths in the world, while Peru, Hungary, Bosnia, the Czech Republic and Gibraltar have the rates of higher mortality considering the population. (Graph on cases and deaths in the world) https://tmsnrt.rs/34pvUyi
Latin American countries are facing their worst outbreak since March, with 43 out of every 100 infections in the world occurring in the region, according to a Reuters analysis. The nine countries that have registered the most deaths per capita in the last week are in Latin America.
Hospitals in Bolivia, Chile and Uruguay are mainly treating patients with COVID-19 aged between 25 and 40 years, as the trend towards younger patients continues. In the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo, 80% of the occupants of intensive care units (FIA) are patients with COVID-19.
Rising deaths are testing the operational capacity of crematoria in developing countries and gravediggers in several countries have been forced to expand cemeteries.
India and Brazil are the countries that register the highest number of daily deaths in an average of seven days and continue to have cremation problems and lack of space for burials. According to a Reuters analysis, India has one in three deaths a day worldwide.
Many health experts believe that the official death toll is underestimated worldwide, and the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated last month that the death toll was much higher.
Last week, the Indian state of Bihar significantly increased the number of affected by COVID-19 after thousands of undeclared cases were discovered, reinforcing concerns that the total number of fatalities in India is significantly higher than the official figure.
As poorer nations struggle to inoculate their populations due to vaccine shortages, richer countries have been urged to donate more to control the pandemic.
“The main problem in the American continent is access to vaccines, not their acceptance,” said the director of the Pan American Health Organization, Carissa Etienne, on Wednesday, urging donor countries to send vaccines as soon as possible.
The wealthy nations of the Group of Seven (G7) had pledged to provide 1 billion vaccines from COVID-19 to help the poorest countries vaccinate their populations.
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