Brasilia, June 17 (RHC)-- Brazil has reported a record 34,918 new coronavirus cases, on the same day that one of the senior officials leading the country's response to the crisis claimed the outbreak was under control.

Brazil also registered 1,282 COVID-19 deaths bringing confirmed fatalities to 45,241.  Walter Braga Netto, the head of the office of the president's chief of staff and one of the top officials handling the crisis, said it was under control.

"There is a crisis, we sympathise with bereaved families, but it is managed," Braga Netto told a webinar organised by the Commercial Association of Rio de Janeiro.

Braga Netto based his claim on deaths-per-million-people, which suggested the country was doing better than many European nations, saying he "was trying to convey a message of optimism in the management of the crisis."

But Carissa Etienne, who is the director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said in a video briefing from Washington that Brazil is a major concern.   "We are not seeing transmission slowing down" in Brazil, Etienne said.

Latin America's largest country accounts for about a quarter of the roughly four million coronavirus cases in the Americas and nearly 25 percent of the deaths, she said.