South America

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Brazil registered 1,111 deaths from COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, the highest daily count fatalities since Oct. 3, when 1,307 people died, the Health Ministry said Tuesday.

The death toll from COVID-19 nationwide has thus amounted to 192,681.

Meanwhile, 58,718 new cases were detected in the last 24 hours, the highest daily tally since Dec. 17, bringing the nationwide caseload to 7,563,551.

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 29 (NNN-MERCOPRESS) — Argentina begins vaccinating its citizens against coronavirus on Tuesday using the recently delivered Russian Sputnik V vaccine, the government said, following its approval by health authorities for emergency use.

Argentine president Alberto Fernández and provincial governors said health personnel would receive their vaccines in less than 72 hours. Around 300,000 doses arrived in Argentina on Dec 24, and subsequent shipments are expected early in 2021.

CARACAS, Dec 29 (NNN-TELESUR) — Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry reported on Monday that over 200 citizens returned to the country on a flight from Chile as part of the Return to the Homeland Plan.

According to Venezuelan authorities, 216 Venezuelans arrived Monday to the Maiquetía International Airport in the Northern state of La Guaira. Moreover, another 120 returned from Argentina on Sunday night.

The Foreign Ministry detailed that these Venezuelans “were stranded and in a vulnerable situation” as a result of the restrictions imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 28 (NNN-CMA) – Brazilian Vice President, Hamilton Mourao, tested positive for COVID-19 yesterday, his office said in a statement.

The result was confirmed yesterday afternoon, and the vice president will remain in isolation at the official vice-presidential residence, said the statement.

Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro, was infected in July and has recovered.

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazil has registered 307 new COVID-19 deaths, and 17,246 new cases of coronavirus, the health ministry said on Saturday, as President Jair Bolsonaro said he was not worried about delays in rolling out vaccinations in Latin America’s biggest country.

Brazil now has nearly 7.5 million confirmed cases and 190,795 deaths from the virus, ministry data showed.

MONTEVIDEO, Dec 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Three Latin American countries launched mass immunization programs on Thursday as fears grew in Europe over a variant coronavirus strain that is believed to be far more contagious than the original version.

Frontline medical staff in Mexico and Chile were among the first to receive their vaccines while Costa Rica began its own immunization program, with President Carlos Alvarado hailing what “may be the beginning of the end of this pandemic.”

SAO PAULO, Dec. 24 (Xinhua) -- Brazil registered 762 deaths from the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) disease in the last 24 hours, raising the death toll to 189,982, the Ministry of Health said Thursday.

In its daily pandemic report, the Ministry of Health also reported 58,428 new cases of infection in the last 24 hours, for a total of 7,423,945 cases since Feb. 26, when Latin America's first case was detected in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo.

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 24 (NNN-TELAM) – Argentine President, Alberto Fernandez, compared the COVID-19 pandemic, to “walking blindly through a swamp,” given that new strains of the virus have been recently detected, raising questions about the efficacy of vaccines.

Dealing with the health crisis “is the closest thing to walking blindly through a swamp, because you don’t know where you are stepping,” said Fernandez, during the inauguration of a penitentiary hospital, in the city of Lomas de Zamora, about 20 kilometres south of the capital Buenos Aires.

SAO PAULO, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's state-run Butantan Institute on Wednesday announced that the CoronaVac vaccine developed by the private Chinese laboratory Sinovac Life Science achieved the levels of efficacy against the coronavirus required by the World Health Organization (WHO) in trials with 13,000 Brazilian volunteers.

"The data corroborate that it is the safest vaccine on the market and we achieved the superiority in efficacy required by the WHO and Brazil's Health Regulatory Agency (Anvisa)," Dimas Covas, director of the institute, said at a press conference.

CARACCAS, Dec 23 (NNN-TELESUR) — Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez on Tuesday welcomed the arrival of medical supplies donated by China to support the fight against the pandemic.

After pointing out that it was the ninth shipment sent by Chinese authorities, she recalled that over 274 tons of equipment, medical inputs, and medicines have been received so far this year.