With nearly 190,000 new cases, steepest hike seen globally in 24 hours: WHO

The global COVID-19 case total has surged past 9.8 million after a single-day record of 189,077 cases were registered worldwide over the past 24 hours, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Sunday (local time).

"Today, we report a record number of new cases in the last 24 hours globally (189,077 cases), with several countries reporting their highest number of new cases in a 24-hour period," the WHO said in its daily statistical bulletin.

The latest rise to the overall case count is a significant increase from the 179,316 new positive tests reported on Saturday by the WHO.

The bulk of the new cases were reported in Brazil and the United States, which confirmed 46,860 and 44,458 new positive tests over the past 24 hours, respectively. A further 19,906 new cases were also reported in India over the past day.

The WHO confirmed on Sunday that 4,612 people died from complications related to the coronavirus disease over the past 24 hours, a drop of 2,254 compared to the corresponding rise to the death toll on Saturday.

Earlier in the day, the US-based Johns Hopkins University, whose Coronavirus Response Centre also tallies COVID-19 figures, reported that the global case count has already surpassed 10 million.