Brasilia, Jan 22 (IANS): In the last 24 hours, Brazil reported more than 160,000 new Covid-19 cases for a third consecutive day, the National Council of Health Secretaries said.

The new infections has increased Brazil's overall caseload as of Saturday morning to 23,766,499, the third highest after the US and India.

In the same time, the country registered 358 fatalities, taking the national death toll to 622,875, the second largest after the US.

Brazil registered a mortality rate of 296.3 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants on Friday, while the incidence rate reached 11,302.5 per 100,000 inhabitants, Xinhua news agency quoted the Council as saying.

The spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant has led to an increase in cases and deaths in Brazil, although mass vaccination in the South American country had considerably reduced the figures in recent months.

According to official data, 162.6 million people in Brazil, or 75.7 per cent of the country's population, have received at least one dose of a vaccine, and 148.1 million of them have been fully vaccinated.