India passes 1million convid-19 cases, as Brazil hits 2million

The Health Ministry has now confirmed that with more than 34,000 new infections in the last 24 hours, India has breached the one million mark. The number of deaths reported has now crossed 25,000.

When India first went into lockdown, back in March, cases were hovering around 500. And when it started to gradually exit out of its lockdown on 8 June, confirmed cases had increased rapidly across states.

With more than 1.3 billion people, the country was always a point of concern. With its densely populated cities, most experts anticipated India to become a big hotspot when cases were still in the thousands. This means that India is now the third most impacted Nation by the virus. US leads then Brazil comes second

Likewise, Brazil has now tallied more than two million confirmed virus cases.

It was less than a month ago that Brazil reached one million cases - and there is little sign that the rate of increase is slowing.

Brazil, which is home to around 210 million people, is the second worst affected country behind the US. But President Jair Bolsonaro, who tested positive for the virus, has continued to play down its health risks and fought against social distancing orders.

More than 74,000 people have died from the virus - and the true figures are believed to be even higher.