PARIS (AFP) - The number of deaths from Covid-19 across Europe passed 900,000 on Tuesday (March 16), according to an AFP tally of official figures provided by the health authorities.

As of 0845 GMT (4.45pm Singapore time), the 52 countries and territories of the region - which includes Russia and Turkey - had officially registered 900,185 coronavirus deaths since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, out of a total of 40,083,433 confirmed cases.

This makes Europe the deadliest region, ahead of Latin America and the Caribbean (721,581 deaths), Canada and the United States (558,110 deaths) and Asia (263,250).

Last week, Europe saw an average of 3,000 Covid deaths a day, a 2.3 per cent drop from the previous week.

For a month now, the region has seen fewer than 4,000 daily deaths - a figure which it had been surpassing since November last year - with a grim new record, 5,700 deaths in 24 hours, reached at the end of January.

The total number of infections in Europe since the start of the pandemic passed 40 million on Monday.

Britain is the region's worst-hit country with a total of 125,580 deaths for 4,263,527 cases, followed by Italy (102,499 deaths, 3,238,394 cases), Russia (92,937 deaths, 4,409,438 cases), France (90,788 deaths, 4,078,133 cases) and Germany (73,656 deaths, 2,581,329 cases).

Together, these five countries represent more than half of Europe's total coronavirus deaths.

Relative to the size of its population, the Czech Republic is the country with the highest death toll in Europe with 218 deaths per 100,000 people, followed by Belgium (194), Slovenia (189), Britain (185) and Montenegro (180).

These figures are based on daily tolls provided by the health authorities in each country and exclude later re-evaluations by statistical organisations based on excess deaths, as has happened in Russia, Spain and Britain.

Globally, more than 120 million Covid-19 infections have been registered during the pandemic, leading to nearly 2.66 million deaths worldwide.