GENEVA, March 18. /TASS/. More than 406,000 new cases of novel coronavirus have been confirmed globally in the past 24 hours, pushing a total number of infections to 120.38 million, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in its daily bulletin on Wednesday.

According to the WHO updates, the coronavirus-related deaths increased by over 7,400 to surpass 2.66 million.

As of 21.34 Moscow time on March 17, as many as 120,383,919 coronavirus cases and 2,664,386 coronavirus-related deaths were registered across the globe. The number of confirmed cases grew by 406,980 in the past 24 hours and the number of fatalities increased by 7,492.

The WHO statistics are based on the officially confirmed data provided by countries.

Europe accounts for more than 48% of new COVID-19 cases submitted to the WHO in the past 24 hours (196,594 cases). South and North America goes second (119,728 cases) followed by the Eastern Mediterranean region (39,472).

Most COVID-19 cases are recorded in the United States (29,205,543), followed by Brazil (11,519,609), India (11,438,734), Russia (4,418,436), the UK (4,268,825), France (4,037,745), Italy (3,258,770), Spain (3,195,062), Turkey (2,911,642), Germany (2,594,764), Colombia (2,305,884), and Argentina (2 201 886).