Nepal has added 619 deaths — an almost 30 per cent rise — to its coronavirus toll, blaming a numbers discrepancy between different government branches.

The toll jumped to 2,684 dead after the health ministry added 618 fatalities from last year and one new death in its daily report.

Ministry spokesman Jageshwor Gautam told AFP the extra dead had all been Covid-19 patients who died outside hospitals before mid-December last year.

“Home deaths had not been properly accounted for in the ministry's data, but the army was disposing of the bodies,” Gautam said.