Brazil topped 60,000 deaths from the novel coronavirus after recording more than 1,000 fatalities over the last 24 hours, the health ministry said on Wednesday.

The South American country has suffered the largest number of daily deaths globally for the last week, and is the second worst affected nation in the world for both cases and fatalities after the United States.

Brazil is showing no signs of reducing either its number of daily cases or deaths.

With more than 46,000 new cases, the country of 212 million now has 1.44 million people infected, although analysts believe the true figure is much higher.

The largest number of deaths have been in the most populous state, Sao Paulo, with 14,700, followed by Rio de Janeiro, with more than 10,000.

Rio's death rate of 584 per million inhabitants is more than twice the national average of 284.

The northeastern state Ceara has been even worse hit with 673 deaths per million, putting it on a par with the hardest hit countries in the world.

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© 2020 AFP