According to the WHO, this is the first time the number of new daily infections has surpassed a quarter of a million.

The World Health Organization says member states reported more than 212,000 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Saturday, the highest single-day increase since the start of the pandemic.

The highest number of new infections was reported from the Americas region, which includes the United States and Brazil, with almost 130,000 confirmed cases.

The Southeast Asia region recorded the second-largest surge with 27,947 new cases and 534 deaths over the past 24 hours, it added.

Worldwide cases have reached 11.23 million while 6.04 million patients have recovered, according to the latest Johns Hopkins University tally.

The number of deaths worldwide hit more than 530,000.

In the African region, there were 339,542 confirmed cumulative cases according to the WHO Regional Office for Africa.

Kenya is East Africa’s most affected country with 7,577 cumulative cases, 2,236 of them have recovered and 159 have died.

In South Sudan, 7 new cases were confirmed on Saturday, raising the total number of cases to 2065 with 40 deaths and 649 recovered cases.

Uganda’s cases also rose to 927 by Saturday with 868 recoveries and no deaths.

On Friday, the WHO said that it was discontinuing its trials of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine and combination of HIV drug lopinavir/ritonavir in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 after the medications failed to reduce mortality.