MOSCOW, July 9. /TASS/. The World Health Organization registers record high levels of coronavirus infections worldwide nearly every day and this shows that the pandemic is increasing at a global level, WHO’s Representative in Russia Melita Vujnovic told TASS on Thursday.

"At a global level the pandemic is growing and nearly every day the WHO receives data on a record high number of cases of the disease," Vujnovic said. "In general, over the past six months the WHO registered more than 10 mln COVID-19 cases and over 1 mln cases were registered during each of the past two weeks."

A sharp rise in COVID-19 cases was seen in North and South America and a large number of cases was also confirmed in Southeast Asia and Africa, the WHO envoy pointed out. "Brazil, the United States of America and India remain among three most affected countries in the past days," the official said.

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 12,000,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 552,300 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 7,000,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.