Coronavirus cases are nearing 5 million around the world with more than 321,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Russia now has the second-highest total cases with 300,000, followed only by the U.S. which has a reported 1.5 million cases.

Cases are also spiking in India, South Africa and Mexico.

On Tuesday, Russia recorded nearly 9,300 new infections in 24 hours, about half of them in Moscow. Authorities say more than 2,800 people with COVID-19 have died in Russia, a figure some say is likely higher.

The rising cases in Russia have tarnished President Vladimir Putin's standing.

Putin’s approval ratings sank last month to 59%. It's the lowest level in the two decades he has been in power, Russia's independent pollster Levada Center reported.

Mexico has reported nearly 52,000 coronavirus cases, and more than 5,300 deaths.

In Mexico City, a registry of death certificates suggests there were 4,577 cases where doctors mentioned coronavirus or COVID-19 as a possible or probable cause of death -- more than three times the official death toll in the city.

Mexico's government acknowledges only 1,332 confirmed deaths in Mexico City since the pandemic began, less than a third as many as the investigation revealed.

The anti-corruption group Mexicans Against Corruption said in a report Monday that it got access to a database of death certificates issued in Mexico City between March 18 and May 12.

Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum has acknowledged there are more deaths than have officially been reported, and has said a special commission will review the death figures. Her office did not immediately respond to AP requests for comment on the new report.

Mexico performs relatively few tests; only about 150,000 have been carried out so far in a nation of about 125 million people. Federal officials acknowledge some victims have died without being tested and have pledged that cases where death certificates mention coronavirus as a possible or probable cause of death would eventually be added to official death tolls. But they have suggested those "suspected" cases were only about a tenth of test-confirmed deaths.

India has recorded more than 106,000 total cases and 3,300 deaths, and South Africa more than 16,000 cases with nearly 300 deaths.

Members of the World Health Organization wrapped up their two-day virtual assembly Tuesday passing a unanimous resolution backing cooperation to find tools to address COVID-19 and inspect the world's response to it.

World leaders like the presidents of the European Commission and Colombia joined in by video conference, hours after Trump made public his letter sent Monday to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus blasting "repeated missteps" of the agency as "very costly for the world."

The European Union urged countries to support the WHO in the wake of Trump's continued attacks. European Commission spokeswoman Virginie Battu-Henriksson said now wasn't "the time for finger-pointing or undermining multilateral cooperation."

Tedros appeared determined to rise above the new bout of U.S. criticism, saying "WHO's focus now is fighting the pandemic with every tool at our disposal. Our focus is on saving lives. At the end of the day, what matters is life."

TRUMP ON HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE

In the U.S., White House officials scrambled to defend Trump's announcement Monday that he is taking a controversial malaria drug to protect against the coronavirus.

Many medical professionals say the drug, hydroxychloroquine, is an unproven treatment for COVID-19 and could have potentially fatal side effects.

Trump's announcement caught many in his administration by surprise, the Associated Press reported.

Officials on the White House Coronavirus Task Force have warned that the drug should only be administered for COVID-19 in a hospital or research setting.

Trump said he decided to take hydroxychloroquine after two White House staffers tested positive for the coronavirus. He had previously spent months promoting the drug as a potential cure or preventive.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said later Tuesday that "any use of hydroxychloroquine has to be in consultation with your doctor. You have to have a prescription. That’s the way it must be done."

Trump said his doctor did not recommend hydroxychloroquine to him, but that he requested it from the White House physician.

"I started taking it, because I think it's good," Trump said. "I've heard a lot of good stories."

The White House physician, Dr. Sean Conley, said in a statement released through the press office that, after "numerous discussions" with Trump about the evidence for and against using hydroxychloroquine, "we concluded the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks."

There have been increased reports of side effects with the drug.

Calls to U.S. poison control centers involving hydroxychloroquine increased last month to 96, compared with 49 in April 2019, according to data from the American Association of Poison Control Centers provided to the AP.

It was the second month of elevated reports involving the drug, following 79 calls in March. The problems reported included abnormal heart rhythms, seizures, nausea and vomiting.

Two large observational studies, each involving around 1,400 patients in New York, recently found no COVID-19 benefit from hydroxychloroquine. Two new ones published Thursday in the medical journal BMJ reached the same conclusion.

Prescriptions for hydroxychloroquine surged roughly 80% in March to more than 830,000 compared with same period in the prior year, according to data tracking firm IQVIA.

That jump in prescribing came before the federal government accepted nearly 30 million doses of the drug donated to the strategic national stockpile by foreign drugmakers, reported the AP. Since then, millions of those tablets have been shipped to U.S. hospitals nationwide for use treating patients with COVID-19.

President Donald Trump’s declaration that he's taking the drug will likely be welcomed in India.

His previous endorsement of hydroxychloroquine helped to spur a shift in the South Asian country, the world's largest producer of the drug, to make much more of it, prescribe it for front-line health workers treating the virus and deploy it as a diplomatic tool, despite mounting evidence against using the drug for COVID-19.

India’s policy on the decades-old drug, used to prevent malaria and treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, drastically changed after Trump tweeted in March that the drug, used together with an antibiotic, could be "game changers" in the fight against the pandemic. India's health ministry quickly approved it as a prophylactic for health care workers and others at high risk of infection, and as a treatment for critically ill patients.

POTENTIAL VACCINE

Drug company Moderna's announcement Monday that a potential vaccine for COVID-19 seemed to generate an immune response similar to those seen in people who have recovered from the virus led to the company's stock valuation reaching $29 billion, reported STAT, an U.S. data news website.

U.S. stock indexes were down Tuesday afternoon as trading turned wobbly a day after the market notched its biggest jump in more than five weeks.

Asian shares were higher Tuesday on optimism about Moderna's developments.

Investors were also encouraged by remarks over the weekend from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who expressed optimism that the U.S. economy could begin to recover in the second half of the year. Once the outbreak has been contained, he said, the economy should be able to rebound "substantially."

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