MANILA (UPDATE) - The Philippines’ COVID-19 tally neared 1 million as it confirmed 8,162 new cases of the disease on Sunday bringing the country’s total to 997,523.

The country is expected to breach the 1-million mark in terms of total COVID-19 cases on Monday, according to the ABS-CBN Data Analytics Group.

The Department of Health meanwhile also reported 20,509 new recoveries, pushing the total number of Filipinos who recovered from the disease to 903,665.

This means that the country has a total of 77,075 active cases as of 4 p.m. Sunday.

The number of active cases is the lowest since March 21. The DOH has reported nearly 200,000 recoveries in the past 8 days.

One hundred nine more deaths were reported from the illness, bringing COVID-19’s death toll in the Philippines to 16,783.

This was the fifth straight day that over 100 deaths were reported.

The pandemic has already caused the Philippines to plunge into its worst economic contraction since World War 2.

Economic managers had been looking forward to a sharp rebound in growth in the second quarter as the economy opened up.

The World Bank however said the country’s slow mass vaccination amid surging COVID-19 cases has prompted it to lower its recovery expectations for the Philippines.

The country’s first COVID-19 case was a 38-year-old Chinese woman from Wuhan, China.

The first COVID-19 death outside of China, was also recorded in the Philippines last year.

Worldwide, the novel coronavirus has infected more than 146.48 million people and caused over 3 million deaths since it was first reported in Wuhan, China in late 2019 according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

The United States remains the most badly affected country with over 32 million infections and over 571,000 deaths.

India has overtaken Brazil as the second most badly affected country, with 16.7 million infections. But in terms of deaths, Brazil has recorded more fatalities than India, with the South American country reporting over 389,000 COVID-19 deaths against India’s 192,000 fatalities.

• Brazil hits record COVID-19 death toll in April
• India coronavirus cases set new global record, US readies help

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