Washington, Oct 24 (IANS): The global coronavirus caseload has topped 243.3 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 4.94 million and vaccinations soared to over 6.78 billion, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

In its latest update on Sunday 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 243,320,811, 4,942,947 and 6,784,777,718, respectively.

The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 45,427,365 and 735,800, according to the CSSE.

In terms of infections, India follows in the second place with 34,159,562 cases.

The other worst countries with over 3 million cases are Brazil (21,723,559), the UK (8,775,889), Russia (8,078,309), Turkey (7,826,983), France (7,221,941), Iran (5,851,670), Argentina (5,279,818), Spain (4,997,732), Colombia (4,989,681), Italy (4,737,462), Germany (4,464,681), Indonesia (4,239,396) and Mexico (3,777,209), the CSSE figures showed.

Nations with a death toll of over 100,000 are Brazil (605,457), India (453,708), Mexico (285,953), Russia (225,417), Peru (200,019), Indonesia (143,176), the UK (139,878), Italy (131,802), Colombia (127,032), Iran (125,052), France (118,396) and Argentina (115,823).