The Ministry of Public Health on Wednesday said that it registered 531 new positive cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours --bringing the total positive cases to 8,676.

The number of total known active cases in Afghanistan is 7,547, said the MoPH.

According to the Health Ministry, six people lost their lives over the past 24 hours and eight more recovered. The known death toll from the coronavirus is now 193.

The total number of recoveries is 938.

Kabul is a hotspot for the virus, with 274 reported cases in the past twenty-four hours.

The new cases, according to the ministry, were reported in Kabul (274), Herat (69), Balkh (55), Nangarhar (35), Wardak (26), Sar-e-Pul (15), Paktika (12), Khost (12), Paktia (7), Badghis (1), Laghman (5), Parwan (13), Jawzjan (2), Farah (2) and Faryab (3),

So far, 26,707 people have been tested in the country.

Global coronavirus cases surpassed 5 million on Wednesday, with Latin America overtaking the United States and Europe in the past week to report the largest portion of new daily cases globally, according to a Reuters report.

This represents a new phase in the virus’ spread, which initially peaked in China in February before large-scale outbreaks followed in Europe and the United States, said Reuters.

Latin America accounted for around a third of the 91,000 cases reported earlier this week. Europe and the United States each accounted for just over 20%, according to the report.

A large number of those new cases came from Brazil, which recently surpassed Germany, France and the United Kingdom to become the third-largest outbreak in the world, behind the United States and Russia.

Cases in Brazil are now rising at a daily pace second only to the United States.

The number of deaths from COVID-19 globally is more than 328,191.