RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- Brazil recorded over 8 million COVID-19 cases on Friday, a day after reaching the grim milestone of 200,000 deaths from the disease.
In its daily pandemic report, the Brazilian Ministry of Health said it registered 52,035 new cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, raising the national tally to 8,013,708 cases.
The ministry said 962 more fatalities were reported, bringing the nationwide death toll to 201,460.
Brazil has the world's second-highest COVID-19 death toll, after the United States, and the third-largest outbreak, after the United States and India.
The state of Sao Paulo, the most populated in the country, is the hardest hit with 1,528,952 cases and 48,029 deaths, followed by Rio de Janeiro, with 454,275 cases and 26,480 deaths.
On Friday, Brazil's Health Regulatory Agency (Anvisa) received the first two applications for the emergency use of two vaccines, one manufactured by Chinese company Sinovac in conjunction with the Butantan Institute of Sao Paulo, and the other by British pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca and Oxford University.
Anvisa has a 10-day period to analyze the applications. Enditem
