Ambulance and doctors at the Cotugno hospital emergency room for infectious diseases, in Naples on Friday, April 17. Salvatore Laporta/KONTROLAB/LightRocket/Getty Images)

The number of active novel coronavirus cases in Italy continued to rise on Friday, despite the deceleration trend seen in the fast few weeks.

On Friday, there were 106,962 active cases of Covid-19 in Italy, 355 more than Thursday. That's an increase of 0.3%, the lowest since the beginning of the crisis.

The Italian Protection Agency said at least 22,745 deaths have been registered so far, an increase of 575 since Thursday.

The total number of cases in Italy, including deaths and recoveries on Friday, stands at 172,434.