TASS, May 24. More than 101,000 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus infection were registered worldwide on May 24, with the overall number of such cases exceeding 5.2 million, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in its daily bulletin on Sunday.

As of 11:00 Moscow time on May 24, as many as 5,204,508 novel coronavirus cases and 337,687 coronavirus-associated deaths were registered across the globe. The number of confirmed cases grew by 101,502 in the past 24 hours and the number of fatalities increased by 4,286.

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

South and North America accounts for the majority of confirmed coronavirus cases - 2,338,124. In the past 24 hours, the number of cases grew by 55,636 and the number of deaths - by 2,932 and reached 138,116.

The number confirmed COVID-19 cases in Europe amounts to 2,006,984 and the number of fatalities is 173,886. In the past 24 hours, the number of cases grew by 19,327 and the number of deaths - by 928.

The East Mediterranean region has 415,806 cases and 10,988 fatalities as of May 24. In the past 24 hours, the number of cases grew by 12,887 and the number of deaths - by 182.

The biggest number of coronavirus cases was reported from the United States (1,568,448), Russia (344,481), Brazil (330,890), the United Kingdom (257,158), Spain (235,290), Italy (229,327), Germany (178,281), Turkey (155,686), France (142,173), and Iran (133,521).

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.