Photo:Xinhua

A total of 161,324 people have died from the COVID-19 pandemic around the world, a tally by Johns Hopkins University showed on early Sunday.

As of 6: 38 a.m. local time (1038 GMT), the United States registered 39,090 deaths from the virus, suffering the most fatalities among nations. Italy reported a death toll of 23,227 and Spain recorded 20,639, to round out the top three.

The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has hit 2,343,293 across the globe so far, with the United States topping the tally with 735, 287, followed by Spain at 195,944 and Italy with 175,925.

The cumulative number of people who have recovered from the disease has reached 602,793 worldwide.

The World Bank Group is expected to launch health emergency programs in over 100 countries by the end of April to support the fight against COVID-19, with 64 already in operation, President David Malpass said Friday, adding that the WBG will work to deploy as much as 160 billion US dollars over the next 15 months.

Other multilateral development banks (MDBs), such as Asian Development Bank, and Inter-American Development Bank, have committed as a group to roughly 80 billion dollars over this period, bringing the total funding from MDBs to 240 billion dollars, Malpass said.