Kabul, Jun 17 (IANS): In the last 24 hours, Afghanistan reported 94 new fatalities from Covid-19, the highest single-day spike for the first time, taking the country's overall death toll to 3,842 in the country, the Ministry of Public Health said.

The Ministry also reported 1,722 new confirmed cases during the cited period, increasing the total infection tally to 96,531, reports Xinhua news agency.

An additional 391 recovered patients were discharged from hospitals, according to the Ministry.

With the increase in positive cases, the demand for oxygen for Covid-19 patients have also increased, reports TOLO News.

On Tuesday, the Ministry of Public Health said it has not succeeded in coping with the challenge despite installing oxygen processing equipment at hospitals.

Despite the situation however, Afghans are visiting vaccination centres in large numbers to get inoculated against the virus, doctors said.

Afghanistan started vaccination this week after the arrival of 700,000 doses from China.

Figures show that so far over 656,000 people have been vaccinated in the country.

Over 121,000 of them are health workers and more than 81,000 are teachers.