More than 2.6 billion people worldwide will be in lockdown once India introduces its measures to fight the coronavirus pandemic at 1830 GMT on Tuesday, according to an AFP tally.

With the death toll soaring past 300,000 this year and a quarter of humanity now infected, the pandemic shows no signs of abating as it spreads invisibly throughout vulnerable communities. 

Anxious patients wearing masks form a line zig-zagging back several streets outside a hospital in the French Mediterranean port city Marseille. 

Another 514 people have died in Spain over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll to 2,696, as the number of infections surged towards 40,000, the government said Tuesday. 

Britain's leaders on Tuesday urged people to respect an unprecedented countrywide lockdown, saying that following advice to stay at home would stop people dying of coronavirus.

Doctors and nurses pleaded for supplies such as masks and ventilators that are critical in their battle to treat a surging number of coronavirus patients, while governments on Tuesday continued to roll out measures that have put more than one-fifth of the world's population under some form of lockdown.

High in the Himalayan mountains, Nepal became the latest country to compel its citizens to stay at home, joining large parts of Europe, Southeast Asia and the entire West Coast of the United States. By shuttering businesses, clearing streets and keeping people away from one another, authorities hope they can slow the spread of the pandemic and keep their health care systems from becoming overwhelmed.

Iran on Tuesday announced 122 new deaths from the novel coronavirus, raising the official toll to 1,934 in one of the world's worst hit countries.

US President Donald Trump on Monday said antimalarial drugs that are under investigation to treat the new coronavirus could be a "gift from God" despite scientists warning against the dangers of overhyping unproven medicines.

Italy reported a second successive drop in daily deaths and infections from a coronavirus that has nevertheless claimed more than 6,000 lives in a month.

China announced Tuesday an end to travel curbs at the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic, as governments around the world tightened lockdowns affecting 1.7 billion people in a desperate effort to slow the spread of the deadly disease.