Washington, Oct 18 (IANS): The global coronavirus caseload has topped 240.6 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 4.89 million and vaccinations soared to over 6.61 billion, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

In its latest update on Monday morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload, death toll and the total number of vaccine doses administered stood at 240,658,812, 4,898,374 and 6,617,433,262, respectively.

The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 44,933,336 and 724,317, according to the CSSE.

In terms of infections, India follows in the second place with 34,067,719 cases.

The other worst countries with over 3 million cases are Brazil (21,644,464), the UK (8,488,665), Russia (7,870,529), Turkey (7,630,133), France (7,189,566), Iran (5,784,815), Argentina (5,272,551), Spain (4,984,386), Colombia (4,981,532), Italy (4,717,899), Germany (4,382,019), Indonesia (4,234,758) and Mexico (3,755,063), the CSSE figures showed.

Nations with a death toll of over 100,000 are Brazil (603,282), India (452,124), Mexico (284,321), Russia (219,342), Peru (199,816), Indonesia (142,952), the UK (138,997), Italy (131,541), Colombia (126,865), Iran (124,075), France (118,183) and Argentina (115,666).