By AFP

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The pace of the coronavirus pandemic slowed around the world for a third week in a row, although more than 4,100 people a day continue to die in India.

Here is the global state of play according to a specialised AFP database.

- Fourteen per cent drop - 

The number of new daily cases around the world dropped by 14 per cent last week to 638,600, according to an AFP toll to Thursday.

The number of daily cases had fallen by half over a month at the beginning of the year to around 355,000, but started to spiral higher again on February 20.

The number of cases then began to drop again three weeks ago.

- Latin America bucks trend -

The pandemic slowed down markedly in the Middle East, where there were one-fifth fewer cases. Asia and the United States and Canada regions saw cases fall by 19 percent, while Europe had a 17-percent drop.

However, Latin America and Africa bucked the trend with 10 percent and five percent more cases respectively.

Oceania was stable at one percent more, with just 250 cases a day in the region, almost all in Papua New Guinea.

- Main spikes -

On a national level, Thailand saw the biggest increase, with 52 per cent more cases, or 3,700 per day, of the countries that registered at least 1,000 daily cases over the past week.

Argentina followed with 40 percent more, or 29,300 cases, South Africa with 33 percent more, Belarus (28 percent more) and Sri Lanka, up by a quarter. 

The number of confirmed cases only reflects a fraction of the actual number of infections, with different countries also have varying counting practices and levels of testing.

- Europe has biggest drops -

The biggest declines in cases were all in Europe, led by Poland, where they dropped by 43 per cent to 2,200 new cases per day, ahead of Romania and Serbia which both saw 37 per cent drops, Austria (minus 36 per cent) and Croatia (minus 36 per cent). 

Germany (minus 34 per cent), the United Kingdom (minus 34 per cent), Hungary (minus 32 per cent) and Italy (minus 31 per cent) followed closely behind.

- India has most new cases -

India had by far the biggest number of new cases this week at 295,500 a day.

Although that was a drop of 21 per cent, it is widely believed that its death and infection rate is largely underreported.

Brazil followed with 65,700, or seven per cent more, Argentina (29,300, or 40 per cent more), the US (29,200, 18 per cent less) and Colombia (15,600 or six per cent less).

On a per-capita basis, the countries that recorded the most cases this week were the Maldives (1,575 per 100,000 inhabitants), Bahrain (740) and Uruguay (634).

Worryingly, the three are among the most advanced in terms of vaccination, having respectively administered a mix of different vaccines to around half their populations.

- And the most deaths -

India also mourned the most deaths with 4,115 per day ahead of Brazil (1,954), the US (581), Colombia (496) and Argentina (492).

At a world level, the number of deaths slightly decreased this week by four per cent to 12,237 per day.

However, the World Health Organization believes that as many three times more people have died because of the pandemic than official figures suggest.