The World Health Organisation has warned the demand for oxygen is outstripping supplies as COVID-19 cases race towards the 10 million mark.

WHO director-general Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus said global cases are rising by about one million cases per week.

This, he said, are increasing oxygen demand to 88,000 large cylinders per day, or 620,000 cubic metres of oxygen.

According to Johns Hopkins data, global cases stand at 9.4 million on Thursday morning with 4.7m recoveries and 482,000 deaths.

Worldometers.info, which also tracks the infections gave a higher figure of 9,543,163 cases, with 485,294 deaths.

Recoveries, according to the data site are 5,187,645.

The United States is the world’s grim leader with 2,462,708 cases and 124,282 deaths.

Brazil comes second with 1,192,474 cases and a death toll of 53,874.