Ukraine faces almost 40% jump in new daily COVID-19 cases

KYIV (Reuters) - Ukraine has registered an almost 40% jump in new coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, Health Minister Maksym Stepanov said, just as the country starts its COVID-19 inoculation.

A total of 8,147 cases were registered on Wednesday, the highest figure since mid-January when the number of new cases stood at 8,199, Stepanov said on Facebook. There were 5,850 new cases as of Feb. 24.

The ministry's data show most of the new cases were registered in the western part of the country and in the capital Kyiv. The country has registered a total of 1,325,841 cases with 25,596 deaths from COVID-19 as of Feb. 25.

Coronavirus cases have picked up after a lull during a tight lockdown at the start of the year. The government has set up mobile hospitals in western Ukraine to cope with a sharp spike in cases in the Ivano-Frankivsk region.

Ukraine on Wednesday started its COVID-19 vaccination campaign and the first 159 medical workers got the first dose of AstraZeneca vaccine, the first batch of which came to Ukraine on Tuesday from India.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Stephen Coates)