Health workers wearong protective gear transport a patient on a stretcher in front of the emergency services of the Aix Hospital Centre (Centre Hospitalier du Pays d’Aix) in Aix-en-Provence, southern France.

The number of people killed by the new coronavirus in Europe has surpassed 150,000, most of them in Britain, Italy, Spain and France, according to an AFP tally compiled from official source.

With a total of 150,138 deaths out of 1,640,799 cases, Europe is the continent hardest hit by the virus which has claimed the lives of 263,573 people around the world.

Britain has registered the most deaths in Europe at 30,076 along with Italy at 29,684, followed by Spain (26,070 fatalities) and France (25,809).