Peru has almost tripled its official COVID-19 death toll to 180,764, following a government review, making it the country with the worst death rate per capita, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
Peru has been among the hardest-hit Latin American countries during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Its hospitals have been overcrowded and demand for oxygen has been outstripping availability.
Experts had long warned that the true death toll was being undercounted in official statistics.
The government on Monday (local time) said the death toll, which stood at 69,342 on Sunday, was updated in part because of a lack of testing that had made it difficult to confirm whether a person had died due to the virus or some other cause.
According to Johns Hopkins data, Hungary previously had the worst number of per capita COVID-19 deaths at about 300 per 100,000 people.
With its updated death toll, Peru now stands at more than 500 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 people.
"We think it is our duty to make public this updated information," Peruvian Prime Minister Violeta Bermudez said during a news conference announcing the result of the review.
In Latin America, Brazil has the highest total death toll, with more than 450,000 lives lost due to the pandemic.
Based on population, however, Peru's per capita death toll is now more than double that of Brazil's, according to the data.
Peru's updated numbers are in line with so-called excess death figures, which researchers have used in Peru and other countries to measure possible undercounting during the pandemic.
Excess deaths measures the total number of deaths over a period of time and compares it with the same period before the pandemic.
Reuters
