RIO DE JANEIRO, April 10. /TASS/. The death toll from novel coronavirus in Brazil has increased by 116 in the past day and reached 1,057, the country's health ministry said on Friday.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Brazil grew by 1,781 in the last 24 hours and reached 19,638. Out of over 33,000 patients hospitalized with respiratory symptoms, only 12% were confirmed to have had coronavirus. The mortality rate in Brazil currently stands at 5.4%.

Most coronavirus cases (59%) are concentrated in the south-east of the country, in Sao Paolo (over 8,200 cases and 540 fatalities) and Rio de Janeiro (around 2,500 cases and 147 fatalities).

The first coronavirus cases was confirmed in Brazil on February 26.

In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 1,600,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 95,800 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 357,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.