Brazil has 24,382 cases of coronavirus in 24 hours, 44 COVID-19 deaths -ministry

Brazil has had 24,382 new cases of the novel coronavirus reported in the past 24 hours, and 44 deaths from COVID-19, the health ministry said on Sunday.

The South American country has now registered 22,523,907 cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 619,981, according to ministry data.

Brazil's COVID-19 death toll trails only the United States and Russia, according to Reuters calculations.

Since a hacker attack on Dec. 10, some ministry databases have been offline, affecting monitoring of the pandemic.