A person holds a cross reading "500,000 deaths" as people participate in a protest against Brazil's President
Protesters have rallied in 44 cities across Brazil to accuse their government of "genocide" as the country became the second to record 500,000 COVID-19 deaths.
Thousands took to the streets on Saturday to criticise President Jair Bolsonaro's pandemic response, blasting the leader for not acquiring vaccines fast enough.
Brazil has the global pandemic's second-highest death toll, after the United States.
"I am working tirelessly to vaccinate all Brazilians in the shortest time possible and change this scenario that has plagued us for over a year," Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga tweeted as the death toll passed 500,000.
The government faced fierce criticism for passing up earlier opportunities to buy vaccines.
Pharmaceutical maker Pfizer said it got no response to early offers to sell vaccines to the government between August and November last year.
"We are protesting against the genocidal Bolsonaro government that did not buy vaccines and has done nothing to take care of its people in the last year," Aline Rabelo, a 36-year-old told Reuters in the capital, Brasilia.
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