The global case count reached 109,901,391 with  2,430,096 deaths, according to the JHU.

The US has recorded 27,825,077 cases as of Thursday with 490,447 cases.

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The U.S. is vaccinating an average of 1.7 million Americans per day against COVID-19, up from under 1 million a month ago. New figures from the White House show a steady increase in the pace of vaccinations over President Joe Biden’s first month in office, reports AP

Much of the increase, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, comes from people receiving their second dose. The pace of first-dose vaccinations has been largely steady over the past several weeks, hovering around an average of 900,000 shots per day.

India's COVID-19 tally rose to 10,950,201 on Thursday, as 12,881 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours, the latest data from the federal health ministry showed.

According to the official data, the death toll mounted to 156,014 as 101 COVID-19 patients died since Wednesday morning.

Brazil was approaching 10 million COVID-19 infections on Wednesday, after 56,766 new cases were registered in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 9,978,747, according to the Health Ministry.

In its daily report, the ministry also reported 1,150 deaths in the same period for a death toll of 242,090.

Brazil ranks third in the world in COVID-19 cases, after the United States and India, and second in deaths behind the United States.

In its latest update on the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that although the number of gobal infections have fallen by 16 per cent in a week – 500,000 fewer cases – regions, including Europe, are still in the grip of the virus whose variants are spreading, reports UN NEWS.

The number of coronavirus deaths also declined in all regions by 10 per cent over the same period, with 81,000 fatalities reported in the last week, the UN health agency said in its weekly epidemiological update on Tuesday.

2.3 million victims

This brings the overall number of people who died from COVID-19 to more than 2.3 million, according to WHO.

Moreover, there were 2.7 million cases of new coronavirus infections last week, bringing that total number to just over 108 million.

Five-out-of-six regions reported a double-digit percentage drop in the number of new cases, with Russia recording an 11 per cent decrease, the United States a 23 per cent drop and the United Kingdom a 27 per cent fall.

Only infections in the Eastern Mediterranean Region increased, by seven per cent.

The UN health agency data, which is gathered from its global membership, also said that the European and Americas regions continue to see the greatest drops in absolute numbers of COVID-19 cases.

In some European countries, this is “likely (owing) to a strong combination of public health and social measures”, the UN agency said, before cautioning that the majority of European nations continue to experience “high or increasing” infection rates among older age groups “and/or high death rates”.

It cited France, UK, Russia, US and Brazil as having the highest case tally in the past week.

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Situation in Bangladesh

The fresh cases of Covid-19 and deaths caused by the deadly virus marked a rise in Bangladesh as the country’s health authorities recorded 16 more deaths and 443 new cases in the last 24 hours till Wednesday morning.

The Covid-19 fatalities in the country rose to 8,314 and the caseload to 541,877, according to the latest figures provided Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

In a handout, the DGHS said the daily coronavirus infection rate in Bangladesh fell to 2.67 percent from Tuesday’s 2.68 percent, while the overall infection rate stood at 13.92 percent, a little bit lower than yesterday’s 13.97.

However, the mortality rate remained almost steady at 1.53 percent for the past few days, including Tuesday, said the handout, adding that 489,254 patients (90.29 pc) have recovered from the virus infection so far.

Till date, 3,893,654 samples have been tested, including 16,612 in the past 24 hours.

Bangladesh reported its first Coronavirus cases on March 8 and the first death on March 18 last year.

Also read: Vaccination campaign for foreign diplomats begins in Bangladesh

Vaccination in Bangladesh

The countrywide Covid-19 vaccination drive kicked off on February 7.

Bangladesh inked an agreement with the Serum Institute of India Pvt Ltd, the world’s largest vaccine maker, for 30 million doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. Serum will send five million doses each month between January and June.

Five million doses arrived in Jan and India gifted another two million doses as gift.

The government, determined to make the vaccination drive a success, brought down the age to 40 for registration to get jabs. The government is providing the vaccine for free.

So far, 60,602 people have received the first shot. After the first dose, the second one has to be taken within 8 to 12 weeks.