The number of novel coronavirus cases worldwide exceeded 18 million on Monday, said the US-based Johns Hopkins University, which compiles its own statistics based on data from international organizations, federal and local authorities, Trend reports citing TASS.
According to the university, the overall number of cases currently stands at 18,017,556, including 687,930 deaths. A total of 10,642,251 patients have recovered by now.
The United States accounts for the majority of cases (4,665,932), followed by Brazil (2,733,677) and India (1,750,723).
In late December 2019, Chinese officials informed the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe. On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.