Brasilia, Dec 6 (IANS): Brazil's coronavirus death toll has increased to 176,628 after the country registered 664 new fatalities in the last 24 hours, the Health Ministry said.
The new death toll puts Brazil in the second place with the highest number of coronavirus fatalities after the US, reports Xinhua news agency.
Also on Saturday, an additional 43,209 people tested positive for the virus, which increased the overall caseload to 6,577,177, the third highest after the US and India.
Since November, the South American country has experienced an increase in cases and deaths from the virus, causing hospitals in the two largest cities in the country, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, to reach a 100 per cent occupancy.
The state of Sao Paulo, the epicentre of the outbreak in the country, has so far registered around 1.29 million infections and 43,000 deaths.