Washington, Jul 25 (IANS): The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported a record increase in daily coronavirus cases across the world, despite many countries starting to ease lockdown measures.

It said there were 284,196 new infections in 24 hours on Friday, while the number of deaths increased by 9,753, which was the largest single-day increase since April 30, the BBC reported.

The latest figures broke WHO's previous record for new cases, 259,848, on July 18.

According to the WHO, the number of new cases by country were the US (69,641), Brazil (67,860),

India (49,310), and South Africa (13,104).

The health body said the biggest increases in new deaths were in Peru (3,876), Brazil (1,284), the US (1,074), Mexico (790) and India (740).

As of Saturday, The total number of global coronavirus cases has increased to 15,746,452, while the death toll stood at 639,900, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

The US accounted for the world's highest number of infections and fatalities at 4,112,651 and 145,546, respectively, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed in its latest update.

Brazil came in the second place with 2,287,475 infections and 85,238 deaths.