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Global coronavirus infections topped 2.5 million on Tuesday, according to a Reuters count, with US cases. USA Close to 800,000.
The figure includes more than 170,000 deaths, two thirds of which have been reported in Europe.
It took around 75 days for the first 500,000 cases to be reported, and only six days to record the most recent half million.
The first 41 cases were confirmed on January 10, just over three months ago, and the new cases have accelerated to more than 70,000 per day in April.
It compares with 3 million to 5 million cases of serious illness caused annually by seasonal influenza, according to estimates by the World Health Organization.
While experts say the actual cases of the new coronavirus are likely higher than current reports, the number is still well below the Spanish flu, which started in 1918 and infected approximately 500 million people.
Despite the increasing number of cases in the current pandemic, there are signs that the spread of the coronavirus is slowing down with many countries exercising blocking measures.
In early April, the total number of cases grew at a rate of 8% -9% per day and has since slowed to between 3% -4% per day in the past week.
More than 1.1 million cases have been reported in Europe, including almost 400,000 cases in Italy and Spain, where more than 10% of reported cases have been fatal.
North America represents a third of all cases, although the region has so far reported lower death rates. In both the United States and Canada, 5% of reported cases have been fatal.
Cases in Latin America continue to grow faster than other regions and exceeded 100,000 in the past 24 hours.
In China, where the virus is believed to have originated, new daily cases have dropped to less than 20 per day in the past three days and no new deaths have been reported this week.
However, last week, China increased its official death toll by 40%, adding another 1,290 deaths that health authorities said were not reported before.
Currently, many countries continue to experience a shortage of testing resources, artificially reducing the number of cases and excluding infections in nursing homes.
This story has been published from a cable agency source without modification to the text. Only the owner has been changed.
