Brazil records 40,557 new COVID-19 cases, tally rises to over 4.23 million

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Brazil has increased by 40,557 to 4,238,446 within the past 24 hours, the national Ministry of Health said late on Thursday.

The death toll has risen by 983 to 129,522 people within the same period.

A day earlier, Brazil reported 35,816 new cases of the coronavirus disease and 1,075 new fatalities.

Brazil comes third in terms of coronavirus cases after the United States and India, which have recorded more than 6.39 million and 4.46 million COVID-19 patients, respectively.

The World Health Organisation declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11. To date, more than 27.9 million people have been infected with the coronavirus worldwide, with over 906,000 fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University.