(Reuters) – Global coronavirus infections topped 75 million on Saturday, according to a Reuters account, as several nations around the world begin vaccinating against the virus.
This month, Britain became the first Western country to start immunizing itself with the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and its German partner BioNtech, followed by the United States which has now also approved a Moderna vaccine.
There have been 18.65 million new cases in the last month, the highest reported in a 30-day period since the pandemic began.
Europe remains the region with the most cases (21.6 million cases), followed by North America with 17.9 million, Latin America with 14.5 million and Asia with 13 million.
In Europe, one million new cases were reported in just five days, and Russia and France reported more than 2 million cases since the coronavirus outbreak began. The United Kingdom and Italy have approximately 1.9 million cases each.
The United States became the first country in the world to record more than 300,000 deaths on Monday. The nation reports more than 2,500 deaths daily, according to a Reuters analysis of data from the previous seven days.
Hospitals across the United States have begun giving the first vaccines of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine.
The United States remains the country with the most cases (more than 17 million since the outbreak began), followed by India and Brazil respectively. With only 4% of the world’s population, the United States has about 23% of all cases worldwide.
Brazil on Wednesday recorded a one-day record of 70,000 new cases, which joined the United States and India as the only countries to report more than 7 million total infections. With nearly 180,000 confirmed fatalities, the South American nation has the second highest number of deaths in the world.
On Saturday, India surpassed 10 million coronavirus infections. India has prepared to administer 600 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to the most vulnerable people in the next six to eight months.
Reports of Kavya B, Roshan Abraham and Chaithra J in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Christina Fincher