Argentina confirmed more than 1,000 new cases of coronavirus on Tuesday as the rate of new infections continued to rise just days after it extended lockdown measures in the capital Buenos Aires, the country's largest city and epicenter for the virus.
Argentina's Health Ministry logged 1,141 new cases in the past 24 hours, as well 24 deaths, pushing its totals to 24,761 cases and 717 deaths since the outbreak began in early March.
Latin America has become the new front in the global coronavirus outbreak. Argentina's rising rate of infections, though, still remains markedly lower than neighbors Chile, which reported 3,913 cases on Tuesday, and Brazil, with 32,091 new cases.
Argentina last week extended a mandatory lockdown in Buenos Aires, which accounts for the country's highest concentration of confirmed infections. Other areas have moved to "mandatory and preventive social distancing."
Much of the nation had been under a shelter-in-place order since March 20. The country has a commercial flight ban until Sept. 1, one of the world's strictest travel measures during the pandemic.
(GRAPHIC: Argentina coronavirus cases - https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/editorcharts/bdwvkeglvmn/eikon.png)
(Reporting by Adam Jourdan and Walter Bianchi; Writing by Dave Sherwood; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Tom Hogue)
