LISBON, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- A further 1,646 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in a 24-hour span in Portugal, the highest number of infections recorded in a single day since the outbreak, official figures showed on Saturday.
The previous record of daily new COVID-19 cases was registered on April 10, at 1,516.
According to the bulletin of the Directorate-General for Health (DGS), five more people had succumbed to the disease in 24 hours, bringing the death toll in Portugal to 2,067.
Portugal's cumulative number of confirmed cases now totals 85,574, DGS data showed. There are currently 30,704 active cases of infection in Portugal. A total of 831 people are in hospital for treatment, of whom 122 are in intensive care units.
As the world is struggling to control the pandemic, countries across the globe -- among them European Union member states, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States -- are racing to find a vaccine.
According to the website of the World Health Organization, as of Oct. 2, there were 193 COVID-19 candidate vaccines being developed worldwide, and 42 of them were in clinical trials. Enditem
