Latin America overtakes U.S, Europe in new cases

Latin America overtakes U.S, Europe in new cases

Global coronavirus cases surpassed 5 million on Wednesday, with Latin America overtaking the United States and Europe in the past week to report the largest portion of new cases globally.

Edward Baran reports.

More freshly dug graves at this cemetery in Sao Paulo: grim symbol of how Latin America is facing an increasingly difficult battle with the coronavirus.

Global cases surpassed 5 million on Wednesday, with Latin America overtaking the U.S. and Europe in the past week to report the largest portion of new cases globally.

Latin America accounted for around a third of the 91,000 cases reported earlier this week.

A large number of those new cases came from Brazil, which recently surpassed Germany, France, and the UK to become the third-largest outbreak in the world, behind the United States and Russia.

Cases in Brazil are now rising at a daily pace second only to the United States.

It represents a new phase in the virus' spread, which initially peaked in China in February before large-scale outbreaks followed in Europe and the United States.

The first 41 cases of the new coronavirus were confirmed in Wuhan, China on January 10th and it took the world until April 1st to reach its first million cases.