Herbivores face a higher risk of extinction than predators, whether they are mammals, birds or reptiles, according to an extensive study of 24,500 species both living and extinct that was published Wednesday.

The paper, which appeared in Science Advances, suggests herbivores have suffered a higher extinction rate over the past 50,000 years compared to other parts of the food web and the trend continues to this day.

This contradicts the idea, based on anecdotal evidence, that predators are the most vulnerable because they have extensive home ranges and slow population growth rates.

Nearly a third of Afghanistan's population -- or 10 million people -- has been infected with the coronavirus, according to health ministry estimates published Wednesday.

The figure comes from a survey based on antibody tests on around 9,500 people across the country, with technical support from the World Health Organization, health minister Ahmad Jawad Osmani said at a press briefing.

The survey estimated that 31.5 percent of the population had contracted the virus, with the highest infection rate in Kabul where more than half of the city's five million population were thought to have been infected.