Russia registered 39,165 Covid-19 infections over the past 24 hours, taking the national tally to 8,795,095, the official Monitoring and Response Center has said. Moscow, the hardest hit city in Russia, reported 4,975 new cases, taking its caseload to 1,861,624.

The national death toll grew by 1,179 to 246,814 and the number of recoveries increased by 26,806 to 7,561,978, Xinhua news agency reported. The mortality rate of the disease stands at 2.81 per cent, the Center added.

Global Covid-19 caseload tops 249.5 mn

The global coronavirus caseload has topped 249.5 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 5.04 million and vaccinations soared to over 7.22 billion, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

Global Covid Caseload Today

In its latest update on Sunday morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload, death toll and the total number number of vaccine doses administered stood at 249,502,872, 5,043,945 and 7,226,106,343, respectively.

The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 46,461,564 and 754,278, according to the CSSE. In terms of infections, India follows in the second place with 34,344,683 cases and Brazil third with 21,874,324 infections.

The other worst countries with over 3 million cases are the UK (9,317,072), Russia (8,613,533), Turkey (8,206,345), France (7,301,303), Iran (5,973,457), Argentina (5,295,260), Spain (5,025,639), Colombia (5,010,982), Italy (4,795,465), Germany (4,759,880), Indonesia (4,247,320), Mexico (3,818,216), Ukraine (3,200,411) and Poland (3,076,518), the CSSE figures showed.

Nations with a death toll of over 100,000 are Brazil (609,388), India (460,265), Mexico (289,131), Russia (241,095), Peru (200,350), Indonesia (143,519), the UK (142,174), Italy (132,334), Colombia (127,456), Iran (127,053), France (118,830) and Argentina (116,083).

Africa's Covid-19 cases near 8.53mn

Meanwhile, the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Africa reached 8,527,394 cases, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has said.

The Africa CDC, the specialized healthcare agency of the African Union (AU), added that the death toll from the pandemic across the continent stands at 219,418. Some 7,937,016 patients across the continent have recovered from the disease so far, Xinhua news agency reported.

New test
(A) Breath bag was connected to exhalation port of ventilator at approximately 1 liter of exhaled gas was collected over 3–5 respiratory cycles. (B) Samples were brought to a BSL 3 lab and attached to breathalyzer circuit in hood.Exline, Matthew C., et al./ PLOS ONE

South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia and Ethiopia are among the countries with the most cases in the continent, according to the CDC. South Africa has recorded the most Covid-19 cases in Africa with nearly three million cases, while the northern African country of Morocco reported 947,307 as of Sunday afternoon.

In terms of the caseloads, southern Africa is the most affected region, followed by the northern and eastern parts of the continent, while central Africa is the least affected region in the continent, according to the Africa CDC.