PRETORIA, June 17. /TASS/. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Africa reached 256,504 after increasing by 7,700 in the past 24 hours, while 6,858 patients died from the virus-related causes across the continent, the World Health Organization (WHO) Africa branch said Wednesday.

South Africa accounts for the biggest number of infections (76,334) and 1,625 deaths. Egypt, meanwhile, has the biggest coronavirus death toll (1,672). Algeria reported 788 fatalities.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria is ranked second after South Africa with 17,148 coronavirus infections and 424 fatalities, followed by Ghana (12,193 and 58).

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.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 8,266,480 people have been infected worldwide and more than 446,000 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 4,323,350 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.