RIO DE JANEIRO: Up to 858 Brazilian COVID-19 patients died in the past 24 hours, raising the country’s death toll to 135,793, the Brazilian Ministry of Health said on Friday.

Meanwhile, 39,797 new cases were registered over the past 24 hours, bringing the total caseload to 4,495,183.

Brazil has recently managed to reduce the average number of daily deaths, which stood at 779 in the past seven days, 9 percent lower than the previous 14 days.

The average number of new cases per day has also been declining, falling to 31,097 in the past seven days, 22 percent lower than the previous two weeks.

The state of Sao Paulo, the most populous state in Brazil, is the most affected by the virus, with 924,532 cases of infection and 33,678 deaths, followed by Rio de Janeiro with 249,798 cases and 17,575 deaths.