NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — India has become the third country to pass four million coronavirus infections, setting a new record daily surge in cases on Saturday as the pandemic shows no sign of peaking.

The 86,432 new cases took India to 4,023,179 infections, third behind the United States which has more than 6.3 million and just trailing Brazil on 4.1 million.

The growing caseload comes after the World Health Organization said Friday it did not expect widespread immunisation against COVID-19 until mid-2021, insisting it would never endorse a vaccine that has not been proven safe and effective, over concerns around the rush to develop a jab for the virus.

The Indian government has eased restrictions in a bid to revive the economy but faces the world’s fastest growing number of cases at more than 80,000 a day and the highest daily death toll at more than 1,000.

The country’s caseload has soared from three to four million in just 13 days, faster than the US and Brazil.

The pandemic is now spreading through rural areas which have poor health facilities but is also resurging in big cities like Delhi and Mumbai.

Maharashtra state, which includes Mumbai, has been at the centre of the crisis in India since a nationwide lockdown was imposed in March. It still accounts for nearly a quarter of the new daily cases across the country of 1.3 billion.