COVID-19 cases continue to surge in Southeast Asian nations hinh anh 1An eight-year-old boy shows his appointment slip and other supporting documents to the personnel of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) as he secures his national identification card at the LGU-Canopy in Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya. (Photo: The Star)
Hanoi (VNA) - Indonesia's total cases of COVID-19 have surpassed 3 million since the first infection was detected in the country in March last year.

The Indonesian Health Ministry reported on July 22 that the coronavirus cases across the country rose by 49,509 within the past 24 hours to 3,033,339.

According to the ministry, the death toll added by 1,449 to 79,032. This has been the highest daily number of fatalities the country ever reported since the outbreak of the pandemic.

To date, more than 2.39 million have recovered from the disease.

The Indonesian government recently decided to extend its restrictions on people's mobility, which is locally called PPKM, on the most populated island Java and the resort spot of Bali as well as 15 other cities and districts outside the two islands until July 25. Initially, the curbs were in place from July 3 to July 20.

Meanwhile, the Philippine Department of Health (DOH) reported 5,828 new infections, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 1,530,266.

The death toll climbed to 26,891 after 17 more patients died from the viral disease, the DOH said.

The Philippines has detected 12 more highly infectious Delta variant cases, the DOH said.

All 12 were local cases and tagged as recovered, the DOH said in a statement, adding that there are 47 Delta variant cases in the country.

The Philippines first detected the Delta variant, first identified in India, from samples taken from returning overseas Filipinos. But the variant is now detected locally.

The DOH said that a recent genome sequencing detected an additional 187 Alpha variant cases, among which, 179 were local. There are now 1,668 Alpha cases and 107 deaths from the variant first found in Britain, the DOH said.

The DOH also detected 142 new Beta variant cases, bringing the total Beta cases in the country to 1,827. It said 69 have died from the variant first detected in South Africa.

Meanwhile, Malaysia reported another 13,034 new COVID-19 infections, the Health Ministry said, bringing the national total to 964,918.

Health Ministry Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a press statement that 25 of the new cases are imported and 13,009 are local transmissions.

Another 134 deaths have been reported, bringing the death toll to 7,574./.
VNA