South Africa has climbed two spots on the Worldometers ranking of countries with the most Covid-19 infections following the move to level 1 lockdown earlier this week.

This comes as the number of infections in South Africa sits at 1,517,666 and the death toll at 50,462, according to statistics released by health minister Zweli Mkhize on Thursday.

The number of new infections, however, has been steadily declining, with the country recording fewer than 10,000 in the past week. Mkhize reported 1,404 new cases and 96 deaths were recorded in the past 24 hours.

The minister said the total number of recoveries stood at 1,436,101 and 92,029 vaccines had been administered.

The newly recorded fatalities were in Gauteng (27), Free State (25), Western Cape (18), KwaZulu-Natal (17), Eastern Cape (5), Mpumalanga (two), Limpopo and the Northern Cape (one each). There were no new cases in the North West.

Worldometers tracks the spread of the pandemic daily in 213 countries and territories.

In the world stats, South Africa climbed from number 18 to 16, overtaking Ukraine, which has 1,374,762 Covid-19 cases.

Ukraine’s death toll remains lower than South Africa's by 23,871. South Africa’s cumulative infections surpassed Indonesia’s 1,361,098 and that country’s death toll of 36,897.

The US tops the list, recording 29,526,086 infections and 533,636 deaths, followed by India with 11,173,761 cases and 157,584 deaths.

Brazil is third with 10,796,506 cases and 261,188 deaths.

On Friday, South Africa hit the one-year mark since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country.