GENEVA, May 18. /TASS/. More than 93,000 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus infection were registered worldwide on May 18, with the overall number of such cases nearing 4.62 million, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in its daily bulletin on Monday.

As of 11:00 Moscow time on May 18, as many as 4,618,821 novel coronavirus cases and 311,847 coronavirus-associated deaths were registered across the globe. The number of confirmed cases grew by 93,324 in the past 24 hours and the number of fatalities increased by 4,452.

The WHO statistics is based on officially confirmed data from the countries.

South and North America accounts for the majority of confirmed coronavirus cases - 2,017,811. In the past 24 hours, the number of cases grew by 50,879 and the number of deaths - by 2,810 and reached 121,609.

The number confirmed COVID-2019 cases in Europe amounts to 1,890,467 and the number of fatalities is 167,173. In the past 24 hours, the number of cases grew by 19,922 and the number of deaths - by 1,222.

The East Mediterranean region has 338,560 cases and 9,979 fatalities as of May 18. In the past 24 hours, the number of cases grew by 11,992 and the number of deaths - by 138.

The biggest number of coronavirus cases was reported from the United States (1,432,265), Russia (290,678), the United Kingdom (243,699), Brazil (233,142), Spain (231,350), Italy (225,435), Germany (174,697), Turkey (149,435), France (140,036), and Iran (120,198).

A pneumonia outbreak caused by the COVID-19 virus (previously known as 2019-nCoV) was reported in China’s city of Wuhan, a large trade and industrial center with a population of 12 million, in late December 2019. Since then, cases of the new coronavirus have been reported from nearly all parts of the world. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.