RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazil registered 487 more deaths from COVID-19 in 24 hours as of Tuesday, bringing the pandemic death toll to 623,843, the Health Ministry said.

According to the ministry’s daily pandemic report, tests detected 183,722 new COVID-19 infections in the same period, raising the accumulated caseload to 24,311,317.

The number of new daily cases was the second highest recorded so far, though it did not include new cases in the southeastern state of Espirito Santo.

Read more: Brazil reports over 160,000 new COVID-19 cases for 3rd straight day

Brazil has the world’s third-largest outbreak of COVID-19, with a caseload behind the United States and India.

Despite being one of the global epicenters of the pandemic last year, the mass vaccination program in Brazil considerably reduced the number of infections and deaths, although the arrival of the Omicron variant has caused a recent increase in cases and deaths.