Brazil Covid-19 cases surpass 2 million

Brazil topped two million coronavirus cases on Thursday, according to official data that put the number of deaths at more than 76,000.

Issued on: 17/07/2020 - 00:22

Gravediggers work during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease, Covid-19, at Sao Francisco Xavier cemetery in Rio de Janeiro. Brazil, April 11, 2020. © Ian Cheibub, Reuters

Text by: NEWS WIRES

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Figures published by the health ministry showed there were more than 45,000 new cases over the last 24 hours, and an extra 1,300 deaths.

Brazil is the second worst affected country in the world by the coronavirus after the United States.

And these figures are considered largely under-reported by many in the scientific community who point to a lack of testing.

Over the last two months, Brazil has recorded more than 30,000 new cases in 24 hours 26 times, and on 11 of those occasions there were more than 40,000 infections.

"Two million is a symbolic number because we don't have wide scale testing," infectious disease expert from the Albert Einstein hospital in Sao Paulo, Jean Gorinchteyn told AFP.

"There are probably four or five times more. The most pessimistic projections signal up to 10 times more."

The average number of daily deaths has been over 1,000 for almost a month.

(AFP)