HAVANA - Cuba reported 12 deaths and 1,470 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, the highest number of daily infections so far.

The Ministry of Public Health stated that with these new figures, a total of 157,708 cases and 1,087 deaths have been registered.

"It is a day with very unfavorable results from the point of view of the number of cases and deaths due to the high transmission of the virus and failure to comply with established sanitary measures," Francisco Duran, the ministry's director of hygiene and epidemiology, said on its daily report.

Havana continues to be the epicenter of the pandemic on the island and the ministry has organized an emergency vaccination campaign focusing on the capital as well as the provinces of Pinar del Rio, Matanzas, Santiago de Cuba, and the Special Municipality of Isla de la Juventud with Cuban-made vaccine candidates Abdala and Soberana-02.

So far, 3.4 million doses of vaccine have been administered and about 1.9 million Cubans have received at least one injection.

On Monday, clinical trials for vaccinating children and adolescents with Soberana-02 and vaccine candidate Soberana Plus will begin, according to the newspaper Granma.