Lima, April 19 (RHC)-- Peru reported more than 400 deaths from COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, marking a new record of deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.

The news comes in the midst of a sharp increase in infections driven by the Brazilian variant of the virus spread throughout the country, reported the Peruvian Ministry of Health.  The Ministry noted that on Sunday, 433 deaths were recorded due to COVID-19, bringing the total number of deaths to 57,230 in 13 months of the pandemic.

New infections totaled 7,131, increasing the total to 1,704,757 in Peru.

The previous record number of deaths due to COVID-19 was 384 and had been recorded on April 10, on the eve of the presidential and legislative elections held a week ago.  Peru averaged 331 coronavirus deaths per day in the last two weeks.

The South American country is going through its worst phase of the pandemic and last Thursday reached a daily record of contagions, with 13,326 new cases.