Globally, as of 6:30 pm BJT on Thursday, there have been 120,383,919 confirmed cases of coronavirus, including 2,664,386 deaths, reported the World Health Organization.

Customer Johann Maurer gets a nasal swab taken by pharmacist Josefine Wiecha for a free Corona quick test at a pharmacy in the city centre of Munich, Germany, Friday, March 12, 2021. (Photo: AP)

Current status (data as of 6:30 pm BJT, Mar 18):

Sources: Johns Hopkins University, national public health agencies.

The outbreak has now claimed 545,879 lives in the US, the most of any country, with a total of 30,046,504 infections, according to a tally by the 1Point3Acres virus tracker as of 6:30 pm BJT on Thursday.

Confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Brazil have increased to 11,693,838 with 284,775 deaths, Johns Hopkins reported.

India has confirmed a total of 11,474,605 COVID-19 cases, raising the number of deaths to 159,216.

Russia has recorded 4,378,656 confirmed cases and 92,266 deaths.

The UK has reported 4,287,996 COVID-19 cases and 126,068 deaths from the virus so far.

France has confirmed 4,169,290 cases of COVID-19, with the number of deaths at 91,340.

The coronavirus pandemic has claimed 103,432 lives in Italy, bringing the total number of infections to 3,281,810.

A total of 3,206,116 people in Spain have tested positive for COVID-19, with the death toll at 72,793.

It is followed by Turkey with 29,696 deaths from 2,930,554 infections.

Germany's confirmed cases have increased to 2,613,220, with the number of deaths at 74,054, according to the JHU virus tracker.