GENEVA, April 23. /TASS/. The global coronavirus case count increased by over 73,000 in the past 24 hours, which is somewhat less than one day ago. The number of fatalities grew by over 6,000, which is more than one day ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported Thursday.

By 11:00 Moscow Time (GMT +3) April 23, there were 2,544,792 cases and 175,694 fatalities. The case count grew by 73,657 in the past 24 hours, while the fatality count grew by 6,689.

Most cases and fatalities were registered in Europe: 1,251,458 and 113,336, correspondingly, an increase of 31,972 cases and 3,384 fatalities.

A total of 957,402 people contracted the disease in the Western Hemisphere, while 47,812 people died. North and South America run ahead of Europe by daily case increase (32,111), but lag behind it by daily fatality increase (3,038)

The third place is taken by the Eastern Mediterranean region. By April 23, 144,450 cases and 6,469 fatalities were registered there.

According to the WHO statistics, most cases were registered in the US - 800,926, followed by Spain (208,389), Italy (187,327), Germany (148,046), the UK (133,499), France (117,961), Turkey (98,674), Iran (85,996), China (84,301) and Russia (62,773).

In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 2,600,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 184,000 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 723,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.

To date, a total of 62,773 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 4,891 patients having recovered from the virus. Russia’s latest data indicates 555 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.