Highlighting its continuing peril around the world even as its spread slows in some areas of Asia and Europe and lockdown restrictions are eased, coronavirus has infected 106,000 people in the last 24 hours - the largest number of cases since its outbreak, the WHO said on Wednesday.

Revealing the alarming numbers at his daily briefing, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that two-thirds of those cases came from just four countries, the BBC reported.

The global tally of cases is nearing five million, with more than 324,000 deaths, according to figures collected by Johns Hopkins University's Coronavirus Resource Centre.

The US currently has the most cases, with 1.5m, followed by Russia, Brazil and the UK.