UK reports no new Covid deaths

• WHO says South America situation turning in 'wrong direction'

• India reports 132,788 new infections, 3,207 deaths

• US to detail global distribution plan for 80m vaccine doses

• Japan to donate additional $800m, vaccines to Covax

Britain recorded no new deaths from Covid-19 on Tuesday, a big sign of improvement in one of the worst-hit countries, as the World Health Organization voiced deep concern at the situation in South America, warning that outbreaks in the already hard-hit region were once again worsening.

The pandemic has killed at least 3,681,985 people worldwide since the virus first emerged in December 2019, according to an AFP compilation of official data.

The US is the worst-affected country with 595,213 deaths, followed by Brazil with 465,199, India with 335,102, Mexico with 227,840, Peru with 184,507 and Britain with 127,782.

The last time Britain recorded no deaths was in March 2020, before the country had entered its first lockdown.

But health minister Matt Hancock warned against complacency saying "we haven't beaten this virus yet."

Meanwhile, the WHO's emergencies chief Michael Ryan said eight of the 10 countries reporting the coronavirus highest mortality rates in the last week were in the Americas.

"The situation in South America right now remains of very high concern," he told reporters. "South America was really in a difficult situation only a couple of months ago, and that situation again is starting to turn in the wrong direction."

Ryan's comments came after Peru on Monday more than doubled its official coronavirus death toll, becoming the country with the highest Covid-19 mortality per capita anywhere in the world.

Lima said it had raised the count from 69,342 to 180,764 on the advice of a panel of health experts, which found there had been an undercount.

Ryan pointed out that test positivity rates in many South American countries remained "remarkably high", standing at 37 percent in Paraguay, 33 percent in Argentina and 30 percent in Colombia.

In India, government yesterday reported a daily rise in new coronavirus infections of 132,788 cases over the past 24 hours, while deaths rose by 3,207.

After number of cases skyrocketing for weeks, recently India's situation has shown signs of stabilizing.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday said that the United States would announce in the next two weeks how it plans to distribute 80 million Covid-19 vaccine doses it has pledged globally.

On Monday, Biden said his administration would send at least 20 million doses of the Pfizer Inc/BioNTech SE , Moderna Inc and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, on top of 60 million AstraZeneca Plc doses he had already planned to give to other countries.

Meanwhile, Japan is planning to pledge an additional $800 million to the WHO's Covax programme, the Mainichi newspaper reported yesterday.

Japan has already pledged $200 million to Covax, and the country is expected to announce donations of vaccine doses to the programme, the newspaper said without citing a source.