COVID-19 deaths in Brazil top 98,000

Brazil has recorded 1,237 new deaths from COVID-19, bringing the national death toll to 98,493.

Tests also detected 53,139 new infections, bringing the total caseload to 2,912,212, said the health ministry on Thursday, Xinhua reported.

A total of 2,047,660 people have recovered.

The state of Sao Paulo, Brazil’s most populous state, is the epicentre of the national outbreak, with 598,670 infections and 24,448 deaths. The death toll in the city of Sao Paulo has passed 10,000.

Brazil is one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic, second only to the United States, both in terms of caseload and death toll.