Washington, May 9 (IANS): The global COVID-19 death toll has surpassed the 270,000 mark, while the number of cases from across the world was nearing 4 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

As of Saturday morning, the global death toll stood 274,898, the university's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed in its latest update.

The US currently accounted for the highest number of coronavirus deaths in the world at 77,180, followed by the UK in the second place with 31,316 fatalities.

The UK currently has the highest deaths in Europe.

The other countries with over 10,000 deaths are Italy (30,201), Spain (26,299), France (26,233), and Brazil (10,017), the CSSE data showed.

Meanwhile, the global number of cases increased to 3,938,064 on Saturday.

The US leads the global list with 1,283,929 cases, followed by Spain (222,857), Italy (217,185), the UK (212,629), Russia (187,859), France (176,202), Germany (170,588), Brazil (146,894), Turkey (135,569) and Iran (104,691), according to the CSSE figures.