SYDNEY, June 28 (Reuters) - The death toll from COVID-19 reached half a million people on Sunday (Jun 28), according to a Reuters tally, a grim milestone for the global pandemic that seems to be resurgent in some countries even as other regions are still grappling with the first wave.

The respiratory illness caused by the new coronavirus has been particularly dangerous for the elderly, although other adults and children are also among the 500,000 fatalities and more than 10 million reported cases.

While the overall rate of death has flattened in recent weeks, health experts have expressed concerns about record numbers of new cases in countries like the United States, India and Brazil, as well as new outbreaks in parts of Asia.

More than 4,700 people are dying every 24 hours from coronavirus-linked illness, according to Reuters calculations based on an average from Jun 1 to 27.

That equates to 196 people an hour, or one person every 18 seconds.

About one-quarter of all the deaths so far have been in the United States, the Reuters data shows. The recent surge in cases have been most pronounced in a handful of southern and western states that reopened earlier and more aggressively.

The first recorded death from the new virus was on Jan 9, a 61-year-old man from the Chinese city of Wuhan who was a regular shopper at a wet market that has been identified as the source of the outbreak.

In just five months, the COVID-19 death toll is now equal to the number of people who die annually from malaria, one of the most deadly infectious diseases.

The death rate averages out to 78,000 a month, compared with 64,000 AIDS-related deaths and 36,000 malaria deaths, according to 2018 figures from the World Health Organization.