Brazil registered 18,862 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, bringing the national count to 5,631,181, its health ministry said Friday, Trend reports citing Xinhua.
Over the same period, 279 more deaths from the disease were reported, raising the national death toll to 162,015.
The health ministry reported that the latest data are incomplete, because due to technical problems, the states of Sao Paulo (the country's most affected region by the pandemic), Santa Catarina, Amazonas, Tocantins and Amapa did not update the data on Friday.
Brazil currently ranks second in the world in terms of COVID-19 deaths, only behind the United States, and third in terms of confirmed cases, following the United States and India.