Friday, Italy exceeded three million confirmed cases of the coronavirus, after more than 24,000 new cases were detected.

The Italian Ministry of Health announced that Italy recorded 24,036 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of cases since the beginning of the pandemic to 3,023,129, including 456,470 active cases.

The ministry added that 297 deaths from COVID-19 were recorded Friday, bringing the total number since the beginning of pandemic to 99,271 cases.

On March. 3, Italy recorded 347 deaths, while on March. 4, 339 deaths were reported.

The government previously extended the state of the health emergency in order to contain the coronavirus pandemic in the country until the end of April.