Coronavirus: Brazil's COVID-19 death toll reaches 227,563

Brazil registered on Wednesday 1,254 more deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in the last 24 hours, raising the total death toll to 227,563.

According to the Health Ministry, the number of infections rose to 9,339,420 after 56,002 new cases were detected in the last 24 hours.

Sao Paulo, Brazil's worst-hit state and its most populated one, has registered 53,704 deaths and 1,807,009 cases.

Brazil has the world's second-highest COVID-19 death toll, after the United States, and the third-largest caseload, after the United States and India.

The South American country began its vaccination drive on Jan. 17, after the Health Regulatory Agency (Anvisa) authorized the emergency use of the CoronaVac vaccine, developed by Chinese pharmaceutical firm Sinovac Life Science, and a vaccine by AstraZeneca.

Anvisa announced on Wednesday that it is changing the procedure for approving vaccines for emergency use. From now on, it will not require that phase III trials be carried out inside Brazil prior to emergency approval.

(ANI)

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