Poland is grappling with a third wave of the coronavirus pandemic, as the total number of COVID-19 cases surpassed 2 million on Friday, boosted by a rise in new cases due to the British mutation, health ministry data reports.

The country of 38 million has reported 2,010,244 coronavirus cases and 48,807 deaths in total since the start of the pandemic, the ministry data showed.

Poland surpassed 1 million cases at the start of December as the second wave of the pandemic slowed, but has faced a recent consistent and steep rise in cases fueled by the more contagious variant of the virus first found in Britain.

On Friday, Poland reported 25,998 new coronavirus cases and 419 COVID-related deaths, carrying out 86,100 tests in the last 24 hours.

The previous day it reported 27,278 new daily coronavirus cases, the highest number so far this year.

The coronavirus variant originating in Britain, known to be highly contagious, makes up more than 60% of cases in Poland and will soon reach 80%, a Polish health ministry spokesperson said on Friday.