Paris, Mar 11 (IANS): France on Wednesday confirmed 30,303 new Covid-19 cases, the biggest daily increase since February 24, while 264 more patients died in the last 24 hours, according to figures released on government data website.

To date, the country has recorded 3,963,165 Covid-19 cases and 89,565 deaths.

As of Wednesday, 24,969 people with Covid-19 remained hospitalized, down by 232 from the previous day, while 3,918 patients were in intensive care, unchanged from Tuesday's figure, Xinhua news agency reported.

Data released by the Health Ministry showed that 4,321,474 citizens have so far received at least one dose of a vaccine, representing 8.2 percent of the country's adult population.

France aims to vaccinate 10 million citizens by mid-April, 20 million by mid-May and a total of 30 million, or two-thirds of the adults, by summer.

As the world is struggling to contain the pandemic, vaccination is underway in an increasing number of countries with the already-authorized coronavirus vaccines.

Meanwhile, 263 candidate vaccines are still being developed worldwide -- 81 of them in clinical trials -- in countries including Germany, China, Russia, Britain, and the United States, according to information released by the World Health Organization on Tuesday.