Rome, Jul 17 (IANS): Italy's Health Ministry reported nearly 90,000 new coronavirus infections, bringing the country's total number of officially diagnosed cases to 20.08 million since January 2020.

Italy became the seventh country to officially surpass 20 million cases on Saturday, according to World Health Organisation data. Those with more official cases are the US, with more than 90 million official cases, followed by India, Brazil, France, Germany and Britain.

All those totals are almost certainly dramatic undercounts, since they do not include at-home tests or those cases that went undiagnosed or otherwise unreported, Xinhua news agency reported.

The milestone is just the latest in a series of such pandemic-related milestones for Italy, which has been among the hardest-hit countries since the start of the pandemic.

The Covid-19 cases in Italy are on the rise again in recent weeks, with the daily infection regularly topping 100,000. But the mortality rate and the number of patients in intensive-care units is far below highs from earlier in the pandemic.