MANILA (UPDATE) — The Philippines on Saturday logged 3,439 newly-confirmed COVID-19 cases, the highest daily jump in over 4 months, as the country continued to see a surge in infections.

The day’s cases pushed the country’s cumulative tally to 591,138, according to the Department of Health (DOH). This is also the second-straight day that new infections were over 3,000.

This is the highest daily tally since Oct. 12 last year, data showed, when the country recorded 3,545 fresh cases.

Active infections reached 43,323, with 95.7 of the patients experiencing mild symptoms or asymptomatic.

ABS-CBN News Data Analytics Head Edson Guido said the number of active cases on Saturday are considered the highest since Oct. 24.

Recoveries increased by 160 to 535,350, the health department said. The virus, meanwhile, claimed 42 more lives, raising the country’s death toll to 12,465.

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A total of 9 laboratories failed to submit results on time, the DOH noted.

Out of 26,361 people who underwent testing for COVID-19 on Friday, some 2,265 yielded positive for disease, the bulletin showed.

Five duplicates, meanwhile, have been removed from the country's cumulative tally, of which 2 were found out to be recoveries.

The health department also said 15 cases initially classified as recoveries turned out to be fatalities after the agency's final validation.

Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire earlier in the day said the recent spike in new COVID-19 cases was because of Filipinos’ failure to comply with minimum health standards. The detected local presence of COVID-19 variants just played a factor, she added.

• DOH: Spike in COVID-19 cases due to breach of health protocol, variants just a factor

The OCTA Research Group said in a report released Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases in Metro Manila continued to increase as the health department recorded more cases of the South African variant in the region this week.

• READ: OCTA: Current COVID-19 surge in NCR ‘spreading very quickly in short period’ of time

The researchers believe the surge of cases in Metro Manila could have been caused by the COVID-19 variants that have entered the country.

The novel coronavirus has infected more than 116 million people globally, the running tally of US-based Johns Hopkins University showed.

Almost 2.6 million died from the disease, which scientists said originally emerged from the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019. Recoveries from COVID-19, however, have reached 65.6 million.