Over 100 mn Covid cases recorded in Europe, more than third of global tally

Since the start of the epidemic, Europe has had over 100 million coronavirus cases, accounting for more than a third of all infections worldwide, according to an AFP tally released Saturday.

In recent months, the continent has once again become the epicentre of the epidemic, with an increase in cases fueled by the virus's highly transmissible Omicron strain.

Over the previous two years, the European zone, which includes 52 nations and territories stretching from the Atlantic coast to Azerbaijan and Russia, has documented 100,074,753 Covid-19 infections, according to an AFP tally of official numbers released at 1845 GMT.

More than a third of the 288,279,803 cases reported worldwide since the epidemic began in late 2019 in China are represented by this figure.

Over 4.9 million European illnesses have been reported in only the last seven days, with 17 of the 52 countries or territories breaking their previous record for the most cases in a single week.

Nearly the last week, France has reported over one million new cases, accounting for 10% of all positive cases reported since the pandemic began.

The world's countries with the highest infection rate per 100,000 people were all in Europe. Denmark received the lowest score of 2,045, followed by Cyprus (1,969) and Ireland (1,964).

Although AFP's calculations are based on official data, some infections may have gone unnoticed due to asymptomatic individuals.

Covid-related deaths, on the other hand, are on the decline in Europe.

Over the preceding week, Europe had an average of 3,413 coronavirus deaths each day, down 7% from the previous week. In January, that rate reached 5,735 deaths per day.