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MADRID, April 25 (Xinhua) -- Spanish health authorities confirmed on Saturday that 22,902 people in the country have now lost their lives because of the coronavirus, after reporting 378 deaths in the 24-hour period until 2100 hours local time Friday.

The daily figure is 11 more than the 367 deaths reported a day earlier, but it is the third time fewer than 400 deaths have been recorded in a 24-hour period this week, according to the Ministry of Health, Consumer Affairs and Social Services

Meanwhile, 2,915 new cases were also confirmed by PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests on Saturday, raising the total number of confirmed infections by such tests, which discovers if the coronavirus is active in the body, to 205,905.

The ministry recently changed the way it calculates the number of cases to distinguish between those confirmed by PCR tests and those detected by antibody tests -- which tend to show who has had the virus and subsequently recovered from it).

The ministry explained that antibody tests revealed a further 17,854 people had contracted the virus, taking the total number of cases in the country to 223,759.

The number of cured patients has risen by 3,353 to 95,708.