World Health Organisation (WHO) Tuesday said COVID-19 has killed close to 5 million people across the world so far.

WHO said in a statement more than 238 million people have tested positive for the highly contagious respiratory disease since the pandemic broke out in 2019.

The UN organisation is estimating the actual number of global COVID infections could go as high as threefold the official numbers indicate.

The US is one of the hardest hit countries, with 714,060 fatalities and more than 44 million recorded infections, followed by Brazil, with 601,213 deaths and 21.5 million infections, it added.