RIO DE JANEIRO, June 15. /TASS/: The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19, a disease caused by the novel coronavirus, has reached 867,624 in Brazil, with 17,110 new cases documented in the past 24 hours, the country’s Health Ministry informed on Sunday.
The daily new cases figure has been declining for four days running, with a record number reported on June 10 (32,913 new cases). The number of deaths from the virus has also been declining. In the past 24 hours, 612 deaths from the virus have been reported, with the total death toll reaching 43,332.
Since the start of the pandemic, 388,492 patients have recovered. In the past 24 hours, 9,247 people have recovered.
The state of Sao Paulo is the epicenter of the outbreak in the country as well as its capital of Sao Paulo where more than 21 million people live (agglomeration). The region has more than 178,202 infections and over 10,624 fatalities due to coronavirus. Sao Paulo is followed by the state of Rio de Janeiro (more than 79,500 cases and 7,600 deaths). A lot of other states across the country also report grim figures.
Brazil remains the hardest-hit Latin American state in terms of coronavirus cases and deaths. The first coronavirus case in Brazil was confirmed on February 26 in Sao Paulo, the next day after the annual carnival was over.
In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe. On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.
