BRASILIA, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Brazil has had 8,833 new casesof the novel coronavirus reported in the past 24 hours, and 217deaths from COVID-19, the health ministry said on Saturday.

The South American country has now registered 22,012,150cases since the pandemic began, while the official death tollhas risen to 612,587, according to ministry data, in the world'sthird-worst outbreak outside the United States and India and itssecond-deadliest.

As vaccination advances, the rolling 14-day average of COVIDdeaths has fallen to 228 a day, the lowest since April 26, 2020,which was one and a half months after the pandemic's firstfatality in Brazil. That compares with a toll of almost 3,000deaths a day in Brazil at the pandemic's peak in April of thisyear.

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle in BrasiliaEditing by Matthew Lewis) ((anthony.boadle@thomsonreuters.com; +55 61 98204-1110 ;Reuters Messaging: https://twitter.com/anthonyboadle ))